From: rick@ricksys.lonestar.org (Richard McCombs)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Offline Readers
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 04:19:44 CST
Organization: The Red Headed League; Lawton, Ok
X-Newsreader: rusnews v0.97

russell@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Russell Schulz) writes:

> larry@Birdsong.Suvl.CA.US writes:
[...]
>> Maybe I miss the point of what you had in mind for an "offline mail and new
> s
>> reader". If it is not Waffle itself, then what is it?
> 
> [I've talked about this in mail with people, some who've agreed, some who
> haven't, but I want a larger group in on the debate]
> 
> to continue this thought, please compare for me: (everyone, not just Larry)
> 
>    QWK (which I've never used, but have had to read a lot about)

I used it a little, but mostly for non-usenet stuff.

> 
>    uucp+rnews (which I _use_ for my offline newsreading!)
> 
> keep in mind I don't care about reading stuff off a local PCBo[ar][re]d
> system - I want to read usenet.
> 
> batching
> 
> QWK:
>   you dial in, select articles, wait for them to be batched and compressed,
>   then download.  is there an option to just grab everything new?  prob'ly.

Yeah but you have to call a bbs every day or maybe every other manually,
or set up a bullet-proof script and hope that the sysop doesn't change
anything to break you script for a while (I have enough trouble with my
scripts that just log me in, much less try to automatically get a QWK
door to batch my messages.
> 
> uucp+rnews:
>   done when you're NOT logged in, and ready when you get there.
[..]
>   my reading habits typical, grossly atypical, or what (by not killing
>   90% of the articles)?

I agree.  If I can even be gone a day or two and if I have the disk
space I can catch up when I get back, If I was calling a BBS and using
an offline reader I'd stand a chance of missing something because it
expired or I was limited to 100 messages a call (or some arbitary
number.)
> 
>   I've seen people claim that this approach _requires_ frequent polling to
>   prevent filling up the feed's disk.  it'd be easy enough to have a program

Depends on how news you get and what is considered frequent; at least
once a day is reasonable.
> 
> Usenet headers
> 
> QWK:
>   har har!  Subject: uppercase mangling, limited to 25 chars, etc.
>   - but there are packages now that attempt to put the headers _inside_
>   the text, right?  thus preventing any checks on them as headers until
>   it's too late...

Can you crosspost with a QWK? probably not.
> 
> uucp+rnews:
>   correct, by definition (if only this were true of newsreaders...) :-)
>   and at least, by using different keys to send public (`f') and private
>   (`r' or `m') replies, you don't get as many accidents (I'd hope) where
>   people post one-liner `thanks's.  I claim nothing about `me too'.

Can a QWK reader be made to obey a "Followup-to: poster"?
> 
> Ease of installation
> 
> QWK:
>   one executable - put in your bbs' phone number and your login name/
>   password - if that?  help me out here - what kind of directories will
>   it make/use etc.
Some use a work directory under the main one and some a directory for
each system with a directory under that for each message area and it may
keep the "exploded" messages on the disk until you say you are done with
them where the others will clean up the work directory and save the last
read pointers in the archive incase you want to finish reading later.

> uucp+rnews:
>   the later you install waffle, the easier it is.  is everyone just
>   remembering the pain of their first-ever install?  mine was
[...]
>   I use a tiny fraction of the full waffle package, because I am not
>   running a bbs - it's just me here.  and it's just ain't that tough!

How you could get rnews to work with only one directory?
> 
> 
> Ease of use
> 
> QWK:
>   you tell me
Well maybe anyone could get it to work (varies with the reader.)

> 
> uucp+rnews:
>   again, you tell me.  if I thought waffle was perfect, I wouldn't've
>   written rusnews.  but by now we should have interfaces for every

I'd say you need to be a medium-grade hacker to get waffle up and
running. I got it to work with little or no help.

-- 
Internet: rick@ricksys.lonestar.org,      bo836@cleveland.freenet.edu
UUCP: ...!rwsys!ricksys!rick,   {backbones}!ricksys.lonestar.org!rick
BITNET: bo836%cleveland.freenet.edu@cunyvm  Fidonet: Richard McCombs @ 1:385/6