From: russell@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Russell Schulz)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Offline Readers
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 02:04:45 MST
Organization: Private System, Edmonton, AB, Canada
X-Newsreader: rusnews v0.98

larry@Birdsong.Suvl.CA.US writes:

>>Yes, Hell diver is VERY good, but it is NOT an offline reader system.
> 
> I think you call that "Waffle". Waffle does all these things, and quite well!
> Maybe I miss the point of what you had in mind for an "offline mail and news
> 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)

   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.

uucp+rnews:
  done when you're NOT logged in, and ready when you get there.
  this is a big plus for me, as I'm almost never around when
  I connect to my (busy) feed.  if I were to kill 90% of the articles
  when they got here, this might be a big problem.  but I still think
  it would take more time to login, select what I want, and wait for
  the batching than to batch up 100% of the groups I read and have
  them waiting, even if it was convenient to do so - would you consider
  my reading habits typical, grossly atypical, or what (by not killing
  90% of the articles)?

  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
  wander through each spool/* directory, looking for `rnews' batches older
  than `n' days and turfing them when space got tight.

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...

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'.

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.

uucp+rnews:
  the later you install waffle, the easier it is.  is everyone just
  remembering the pain of their first-ever install?  mine was
  quite easy - waffle created dirs it needed, I decided what groups
  I wanted, my feed put them in his feeds file (he already had a
  wildcard MX that I fit under) copied over the example in the
  waffle/system/systems file, and we were done.  it'd be easy enough
  to have the point's From: lines (or at least Reply-To:'s) point
  to an auto-forwarding account on the feed site (set up once by the
  admin there) to avoid any MXing hassles altogether.  it'd be easy
  enough to modify rusnews at least to grab all news from one news
  directory (not a good idea for large sites, but for single-user sites?
  no sweat.  it'd be easy to hack a new leaf-only rnews to deposit
  the incoming news in this fashion)

  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!

Ease of use

QWK:
  you tell me

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
  possible personality type - windog users get helldiver, speed-
  conscious people get the database-based nwreader, and people like me
  (in some ways, I guess) use rusnews, which I like (surprise!)  chrome
  will eventually be packaged with waffle, giving users a sure-to-be-
  supported option.  there are rumors of trn running under ms-dog.
  _what_ is in a QWK reader that can't just as easily be in a free/shareware
  real-live-newsreader?  hasn't Rhys proven already that what they can
  do with a wimpy standard, we can do better with a more difficult standard?
  (note that Rhys does the work, but `we' do it better) :-)

what other issues have I missed?  disk space?  with the single-directory,
you'd take up less crosspost space (since they're filtered out anyway here,
it's just waste to keep them).  modem/long distance time?  covered that.
amount of trouble for the feed admin/sysop?  I propose setting up a feed
entry, a mail alias, and a uucp login (for each user that does this).
how long would a batch file take to do this?
-- 
Russell Schulz  russell@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca  ersys!rschulz  Shad 86c