Apur-phy.248 net.news.b utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!purdue!pur-phy!crl Tue Mar 16 21:53:45 1982 Re: future news update conventions Please, please, PLEASE!!! I really wish all bug fixes would come out NOT in the diff -e format. I feel that this is a trend to nip in the bud before it becomes too common. I know that it takes less time to transmit them, but I usually make a fix in this way: /* Bug fix from USENET -- crl */ . . . text of fix . . . I do this so someone else can realize who made the change and why. Also what if quite a bit of local code is added? It is unrealistic to believe that all installations will keep the code completely pure. A diff -e just doesn't give enough context to install the fix, if the code is too far away from the original to even see easily, let alone having an editor do the changes automatically. In fact, I would never use an editor script to do the changes, because, especially if I wasn't taking total control of a piece of software, I would never trust the file to be a "vanilla" version. I even feel this way about normal diffs--I absolutely enjoyed working with the "expanded context" version, that placed !'s, +'s, and -'s next to the changed text, and had 3 lines surrounding the change. If others feel this way about the subject, speak up! I can't be the only one who feels this way! On another topic, why does 'expire' use the Expiration date on the article itself, if the default for the system is shorter. We want to keep them around only 1 week here, but all the articles have the 2-week default so they clutter up our spool directory immensely. Is there an easy way to fix this, before I start looking into it myself? Charles LaBrec pur-ee!physics:crl ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.