C to Java Byte Code

[joe]

I'd like to add further that (right or wrong) I have no idea why Dik
would want to make it tough for so many people to respond coherently
to him in the first place. And to see his quotes in color.

Forget whether or not it's ideal. It's the /way it is/: OE + OE
QuoteFix is very common, and all those people are going to have a
problem replying, or worse, they won't even bother trying.

I suspect that the percentage of people who use OE and read these
newsgroups will be a relatively small proportion of all OE users. I'd
guess that most people who read these groups use more functional
newsreaders.

Just my two cent's worth.

Joe

 

[Dik T. Winter]

>
> Charles is the editor, but some other folks are credited as
> contributors.
>
> Of course, since these are Internet-drafts, anyone can comment on
> them, whether they're associated with gnus or not. I think these
> drafts are pretty reasonable, though. I'd like to see them become
> RFCs. (I'd be even happier with them if they made bottom-posting
> and snipping excess quoted material compliance conditions, but that
> might make it more difficult to get them accepted.)

Strange enough (I just reread), it only talks about the follow-up agent,
and what it should do. It does not say anything about what should happen
if the user of the follow-up agent changes things. And in particular, I
do not think my posting manners are disallowed by
"draft-ietf-usefor-useage-00.txt" In particular, I always comply to
the request that new text should be below a certain margin. Just think
about the quotes I present as new text (I always try to reformat them
so that they fit within the margins).

On the other hand, there is nothing in the headers of the articles I post
that suggest "format-flowed" which is a requirement for automatic
reformatting of quotations by me (according to the text). See
especially the paragraph:
"When the precursor had used the "format=flowed" parameter of
text/plain [RFC 3676], and when the followup agent also supports
"format-flowed", flowed paragraphs in the precursor (including any
flowed lines within quotations in the precursor) SHOULD be reflowed.
Thus, if all agents supported "format=flowed", no physical line,
quoted ot not, would ever exceed the default (or policy) limit,
except by the deliberate intent of the poster. Where the precursor
was not flowed, its lines SHOULD be left alone when quoting, except
that already quoted lines which appeared (from the presence of
trailing SP) to have been flowed by one of the precursor's precursors
MAY be treated as such."

I think that quite a bit more can be said about this paragraph. There are
many situations where you *should* use a quote verbatim, and where
reflowing is very inappropriate, especially in technical newsgroups.
When I see a (snippet of a) C program in this newsgroup that has been
quoted and requoted without reflowing, I can just select the appropiate
columns from the lines involved, copy and paste them to some other place
and see what they mean. When reflowing is allowed on such things it means
that I need to reformat the stuff, join lines and so on. But whatever,
I do not post with format=flowed. And see for an example where Thomas G.
Marshall quotes a bit of himself, purporting to be C code, but reflowed
so it is no longer valid C code.

In my opinion automatic reflowing is an abomination. But that's just me.

 

[Michael Wojcik]

[re the current Usenet Internet-drafts]

Strange enough (I just reread), it only talks about the follow-up agent,
and what it should do. It does not say anything about what should happen
if the user of the follow-up agent changes things.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction. It's not uncommon in RFC
parlance to consider the user's actions as part of the behavior of the
agent, if those actions affect aspects of the agent's behavior that
fall in the domain of the RFC. If I'm using telnet and crafting
HTTP/1.1 requests by hand, then the requirements of RFC 2616 apply to
me, as the "user agent", just as they apply to telnet. (That is, both
of us are expected to follow the RFC.)

And in particular, I
do not think my posting manners are disallowed by
"draft-ietf-usefor-useage-00.txt"

I don't think so either, offhand, though I haven't examined the issue
in detail. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear; when I brought up "Usenet
Best Practices" et al, I didn't mean to imply that they were an
argument against your posting style (which doesn't bother me a whit).
I only wanted to note that, if they make it onto the RFC standards
track, they'll clarify some of the issues around proper Usenet
message format.

On the other hand, there is nothing in the headers of the articles I post
that suggest "format-flowed" which is a requirement for automatic
reformatting of quotations by me (according to the text). See
especially the paragraph:
"When the precursor had used the "format=flowed" parameter of
text/plain [RFC 3676], and when the followup agent also supports
"format-flowed", flowed paragraphs in the precursor (including any
flowed lines within quotations in the precursor) SHOULD be reflowed.
Thus, if all agents supported "format=flowed", no physical line,
quoted ot not, would ever exceed the default (or policy) limit,
except by the deliberate intent of the poster. Where the precursor
was not flowed, its lines SHOULD be left alone when quoting, except
that already quoted lines which appeared (from the presence of
trailing SP) to have been flowed by one of the precursor's precursors
MAY be treated as such."

I think that quite a bit more can be said about this paragraph. There are
many situations where you *should* use a quote verbatim, and where
reflowing is very inappropriate, especially in technical newsgroups.
When I see a (snippet of a) C program in this newsgroup that has been
quoted and requoted without reflowing, I can just select the appropiate
columns from the lines involved, copy and paste them to some other place
and see what they mean. When reflowing is allowed on such things it means
that I need to reformat the stuff, join lines and so on. But whatever,
I do not post with format=flowed. And see for an example where Thomas G.
Marshall quotes a bit of himself, purporting to be C code, but reflowed
so it is no longer valid C code.

In my opinion automatic reflowing is an abomination. But that's just me.

I agree that automatic reflowing is undesirable. On the other hand,
I often manually (well, it's a semi-automated process, but it has to
be initiated by me - I pipe text through a filter I wrote) reflow
quoted text when I think it's appropriate, and without regard to the
absence of the format=flowed parameter in the content-type. Thus I
don't care for that paragraph's final conditional-compilance ("SHOULD")
directive.

In short, my ideal would be no automatic reflowing of quoted material
(at a minimum, the poster should have to explicitly request reflowing),
but no prohibition against reflowing, should the follow-up poster
choose to do so. I'd rewrite the last sentence to begin "Where the
precursor was not flowed, its lines SHOULD NOT be automatically
reflowed by the follow-up agent".

 

[G. S. Hayes]

There is a *prevailing* notion that:

If it ain't standard C, it ain't C

This is more than a mere notion: it's a tautology, since C is defined
by the standard. [SNIP]
If it ain't C, it ain't topical in comp.lang.c, and if it ain't C++ it
ain't topical in comp.lang.c++. Since these languages are defined by
standards, "C" and "standard C" are synonymous. While I'm not a
regular participant in comp.unix.programming, I'd imagine it's run
along more or less similar lines.

In my experience, I would say it's not. At least not in the sense of
"if it ain't standard, it ain't Unix". Certainly there are
discussions about how to do things in platform-specific manners on
SysV, BSD, Linux, and other platforms that are more or less "Unixish",
but it's not limited to any of:

a) Machines that are trademark Unix
b) Machines that are derived from the Unix source code
c) Machines that comply strictly with POSIX (or the Single Unix
Specification, or any other standard) (there are other POSIX-related
newsgroups).

Indeed, while you can make an argument for any of those
definitions--and probably most correctly for a), at least
legally--casual and newsgroup usage often treats anything that
"behaves a lot like Unix" as on-topic. That's in contrast to
comp.lang.c, where discussion of GNU C or something else that is "a
lot like C" is considered off-topic.

Both of the following are common answers on c.u.p:

"That's not possible in POSIX, but on BSD try foo(), on SVR4 try bar()
and on Linux try baz()"
"that can't be done on most Unix systems, but Coolix 3.0 has the qux()
call and Portix has wobble()"

Indeed, a huge number of questions which get answers like this are not
considered off-topic.

It's a fuzzy line. Ask how to get information about what processes
are running, and you'll probably be considered on-topic even though
there are a lot of platform-specific details involved. Ask about how
to use the TV grabber interface on your Linux box or the OpenBSD
firewalling tables and you're likely to be redirected to a
platform-specific group.

But c.u.p, for better or worse, is more lenient than comp.lang.c,
where answering with "that's not possible in standard C, but on
Windows you can do x, on Macs you can do Y, and on Unix you can do z"
is not the norm for things that aren't in the standard--and if an
answer like that IS given, it's usually either accompanied by "this is
really off-topic, you should ask on a system-specific group" or
followed up by someone saying "you shouldn't have answered that since
people here can't vet your answers and correct your mistakes". Or
both.

 

[Keith Thompson]

If there's a decent Win32 implementation, I'd be VERY interested
in switching!

Gnus is part of GNU Emacs. My favorite way to install Emacs under
Windows is as part of the Cygwin system (a Unix-like subsystem that
runs under Windows), but it can also be installed directly. Google
"emacs windows" for details.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Alfred Z. Newmane coughed up:

I hope so. I haven't seen such a rule imposed on any server in the
past few years now, and I don't know of any newer (version) readers
that check it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

That said, if I'm right, I'm guessing you are using that form of
quoting from habit? (At least from part?)

I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly

"I see you've conveniently snipped away what
I said about [...]"

I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress:

<quote from PA Bear>
TGM: If you want people to follow this thread and offer advice,
include all
of Previous Message in all of your replies, please.
</quote>

{chuckle}.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?q?M=E5ns_Rullg=E5rd?=]

I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

Removing the irrelevant bits saves the reader the time to scan through
the entire message looking for a reply.

And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress:

<quote from PA Bear>
TGM: If you want people to follow this thread and offer advice,
include all
of Previous Message in all of your replies, please.
</quote>

If you ask him, he probably advocates top-posting as well. Be careful
with where you take your advice.

 

[Willem]

Thomas wrote:
) I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly
)
) "I see you've conveniently snipped away what
) I said about [...]"
)
) I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
) are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
) anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

Irrelevant.

Not snipping it would simply change the above statement to:

"I see you've conveniebtly declined to answer what
I said about [...]"

(Unless whoever sais that is too stupid to notice you didn't answer all of
his statements, but can see that you snip away some statements that you
know you don't respond to, in which case snipping it is actually a service
to said stupid person.)


SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT

 

[Michael Wojcik]

I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
anyone.

I'm curious: is it ignorance or arrogance that leads you to believe
that storage and bandwidth are non-issues for all Usenet users
everywhere?

And, of course, these are not the only reasons for snipping. It
increases the information density of a message. It reduces the
scrolling a reader must perform to find new text (though some agents
provide a mechanism for automating that). It clarifies the intent of
the follow-up's author. It demonstrates the author's ability to
read the quoted text and interpret its relevance to new material. It
indicates the author was willing to take the time to consider how the
quoted material relates to the argument at hand and the discussion as
a whole. It takes a small amount of time and effort, and as such is
a display of courtesy to readers.

And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress:

There's no irony. The Microsoft groups have their own conventions.
They're latecomers who for whatever reason chose not to follow
established behavior.

Presumably, if they cared sufficiently about their interactions with
the wider Usenet community and how their conventions might be
received there, they'd participate in the standards process. I don't
see any sign that they've done so. Consequently, I'm content to let
them mess in their own sandbox; if they come here, they can follow
our practices, or be ignored by many of the regulars.

--
Michael Wojcik (e-mail address removed)

You brung in them two expert birdwatchers ... sayin' it was to keep us from
makin' dern fools of ourselfs ... whereas it's the inherent right of all to
make dern fools of theirselfs ... it ain't a right held by you official types
alone. -- Walt Kelly

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Willem coughed up:

Thomas wrote:
) I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly
)
) "I see you've conveniently snipped away what
) I said about [...]"
)
) I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth
issues ) are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't
going to kill ) anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

Irrelevant.

Not snipping it would simply change the above statement to:

"I see you've conveniebtly declined to answer what
I said about [...]"

Sure, that's probably right. I was regarding the larger problem of people
not understanding the full statement of the prior person before replying.
To me, biasing everything over over-snippage is fair.

Note that I /do/ snip. Er, actually, I "rip", "twack", "stomp", etc...


....[rip]...


--
Iamamanofconstantsorrow,I'veseentroubleallmydays.Ibidfarewelltoold
Kentucky,TheplacewhereIwasbornandraised.ForsixlongyearsI'vebeenin
trouble,NopleasureshereonearthIfound.ForinthisworldI'mboundtoramble,
Ihavenofriendstohelpmenow....MaybeyourfriendsthinkI'mjustastrangerMyface,
you'llneverseenomore.ButthereisonepromisethatisgivenI'llmeetyouonGod's
goldenshore.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Michael Wojcik coughed up:

I'm curious: is it ignorance or arrogance

Unprovoked rudeness?

<PLONK>







--
Iamamanofconstantsorrow,I'veseentroubleallmydays.Ibidfarewelltoold
Kentucky,TheplacewhereIwasbornandraised.ForsixlongyearsI'vebeenin
trouble,NopleasureshereonearthIfound.ForinthisworldI'mboundtoramble,
Ihavenofriendstohelpmenow....MaybeyourfriendsthinkI'mjustastrangerMyface,
you'llneverseenomore.ButthereisonepromisethatisgivenI'llmeetyouonGod's
goldenshore.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Måns Rullgård coughed up:

....[rip]...

Removing the irrelevant bits saves the reader the time to scan through
the entire message looking for a reply.

You're right.

If you ask him, he probably advocates top-posting as well. Be careful
with where you take your advice.

Fair enough. I suspect, upon reflection, that he was specifically
advocating this because of the problem at hand. But you're right.



--
Iamamanofconstantsorrow,I'veseentroubleallmydays.Ibidfarewelltoold
Kentucky,TheplacewhereIwasbornandraised.ForsixlongyearsI'vebeenin
trouble,NopleasureshereonearthIfound.ForinthisworldI'mboundtoramble,
Ihavenofriendstohelpmenow....MaybeyourfriendsthinkI'mjustastrangerMyface,
you'llneverseenomore.ButthereisonepromisethatisgivenI'llmeetyouonGod's
goldenshore.

 

[Dik T. Winter]

> Sure, that's probably right. I was regarding the larger problem of people
> not understanding the full statement of the prior person before replying.
> To me, biasing everything over over-snippage is fair.

Of course, that does occur. Pulling statements out of context and whatever.
But if such happens the original poster will probably notice it and correct
it. And if not it is very probably that somebody else will notice.
Discussion with people doing that is very problematical however.