From: fsars@acad3.alaska.edu (Allen R Sparks)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Status of fastload
Date: 17 Aug 92 05:57:34 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <1992Aug13.224724.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu>, leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:
> Whnever I've tried fastload in V6.0, it seems to work the first time, but
> after a fastload version of NEWSRC has been written, subsequent NEWS sessions
> never see any newsgroups.  (Question for those of you who have reported that
> fastload works for you with V6.0:  Are you using an NNTP client?)
> 
> 							-- Jerry

How do you construct (manually I assume) this NEWSRC. file?  It would
be nice to be able to add new groups to a /FASTLOAD session w/o having
to load the whole shebang.

I thought I'd take this moment to get on my soapbox, and address some
problems I've had as a user of NEWS.  I feel that the philosophy of
NEWS needs to change.  Users need to be able to have more control over
how much loadtime it uses.  An obvious way to do that is to give more
flexibility in what groups we load during a session, and when we
decide list a particular newsgroup, more flexibility in which articles
to list.

For example, in VNEWS, when one invokes a session, it checks to see if
you have a XX.NEWSRC file, and if you do, goes through and checks if
there are new groups to be added.  It seems to do this much faster
than NEWS does.

In addition, if you decide to select a new group, (using the "g"
command) it does not attempt to list all the newsitems in that group. 
In fact, it doesn't list anything.  No queries are made to the
newserver.  When you do tell it to list the newsitems (using the "d"
command) it lists them just like NEWS would if SET
PROFILE/DISPLAY=UNSEENITEMS were set.

Now, say one wants to read an item, that is listed one or two items
before the first unread item?  To be more specific, what if I'm in
talk.politics.misc which usually has about 300-400 items, I've been
keeping up with that group, and only have about, oh 20 items, unread. 
Well with UNSEENITEMS set, NEWS is only going to query the server for
just those 20 items, and I don't have to wait that long for the group
to load.  Extending this example a little further, we'll say NEWS
loads items 33550 to 33570.  Now suppose I've decided that I want to
review a read newsitem; number 33549.  To do this, I need to either do
a SHOW ALL, and wait for NEWS to load 300-400 items, which can be a
painfully slow process, OR, if I know what I'm doing, I can go into my
NEWSRC file, and change it.  If I go into my NEWSRC file and change
it, I will then have to use UPDATE which will be painfully slow,
regardless of whether I've got FASTLOAD set or not, (remember UPDATE
tries to load ALL newsgroups even if FASTLOAD is set, though it won't
display them all after going through all this) or EXIT from NEWS, and
go back in again.  That is the option I use BTW.

Now how would I handle this problem in VNEWS?  Well, first I mark the
whole group as unread ("m/g").  VNEWS will not load all those
newsitems when that command is executed.  Then, using the "c" command
(in the above example "c 33549"), mark all except the last 21
newsitems as read, and now I'm ready to list items in that newsgroup
w/o wasting CPU time, page faults, and bandwidth (all my servers are
remote, though my primary server is on the same campus).  What if I've
made a mistake in selecting a newsgroup?  

Say I'm browsing, and I come across this newsgroup, junk, I don't know
about, and I select it?  Since VNEWS loads newsitems one screen at a
time (and does that only if I tell it to AFTER selecting the group) I
don't have to wait an eternity for it to load.  In NEWS, I can always
interrupt the process, but then I lose any changes (maybe it was a
long session and I forgot to do a lot of CHECKPOINTs during that
session) to my NEWSRC file.

Another area of flexibility that VNEWS offers that NEWS doesn't, is
the ability to cross post, regardless of what groups, are or are not
loaded.  With FASTLOAD on, if I want followup an article that has a
ten crossposts on it, NEWS will only let me include "authorized
newsgroups", that is, those newsgroups that have been loaded.  If I
want to crosspost to those newsgroups, which I don't normally read,
but which might still be of interest to those persons reading those
groups, I have to turn FASTLOAD off, EXIT news, (UPDATE still isn't
any good to me), and then wait as long as 5 minutes (maybe longer) for
NEWS to load all these articles.  And if someone posted from to
nj.market.housing, a regional group, and crossposted to misc.legal
over some legal housing problem, and I want to answer him, in both
groups, then, using NEWS, I have to find me a server that carries
nj.market.housing, and post to that machine.  At this point, I'd like
to ask if there is a way to turn this off on version 6.0-3.  My
sysadmin is interested in turning off this security (?) feature.

Most of the posts I read in here seem to be from sysadmins to
sysadmins.  I thought I'd post as an end-user of NEWS.  I'd venture a
guess that most users of NEWS in this country get their USENET from
unix servers that run CNEWS.  From what I've read on this group, NEWS
seems to be designed to run primarily on servers that are not
diskless, or maybe a diskless server that is also running NEWS as a
news manager.

I like the bells and whistles that NEWS offers, as well as VAX/VMS
like commands.  In the sense that the commands set is more
instinctive for a new user, NEWS is superior to VNEWS or rn (and
probably nn, though I've never used that newsreader).  I also find the
ability to CLASS one's newsgroups a great help in organizing my
sessions.  This is the reason that I've been stubborn in sticking to
NEWS even though VNEWS is sometimes easier to deal with.  Thanks for
taking the time to read this.
                    === Al Sparks