🚀 go-pugleaf

cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) writes:

> 	 IMHO compressing
> and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in
> its raw text format.

I beg to differ.

> How you think it can increase net traffic (one of
> the points you made) I fail to comprehend.

Simple.  zip->uuencode->compress will often result in a larger file than
compressing the text directly.

The news software system should be optimised for human use.  Unless you
build in intelligence about every single compression and encoding scheme
into every single newsreader (including cat and grep) you are onto a loser.

The approach of putting compression and encoding where it belongs -- in
the news transport subsystem simplifies and empowers.  It means that
you can pick the compression and encoding scheme that suits your particular
link.  If a particular site particularly wishes to STORE new compressed,
then it can make its own decision to modify its news software to do it,
but this should not need intervention on a per-poster basis, because that
leads to too much confusion.

So, if you're posting text, please post text.  Do not encode it first.
You are breaking more than you are saving.  Read, and follow Prof Salmi's
instructions.  They are there for a purpose.

Thank you.
-- 
Ronald Khoo <ronald@robobar.co.uk> +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)

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