🚀 go-pugleaf

X-posted to d.i.s.pc for user reactions on features.

On Thursday, in article <831059660snz@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk>
     walter@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk "walter briscoe" wrote:

wb> In article <830821635snz@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk>
wb>            walter@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk "walter briscoe" writes:
wb> 
wb> [snip]
wb> 
wb> > 
wb> > I expect to submit the work to Malcolm within the week unless I find a
wb> > catastrophic hole I cannot putty within that time.
wb> 
wb> I am afraid I found a catastrophe: an agency found me a contract!

Congrats!  Actually entirely predictable.  I find getting
really stuck into an interesting homer usually results in an
urgent contract.  If it doesn't, start a batch of home-made
wine.  By the time the first racking is due, you'll be on a
contract somewhere abroad.  Infallible.            :-) )-|
(that's me holding an elderflower champagne glass)

wb> With my current implementation, articles are renumbered to fit with the
wb> unread articles; with the new scheme, the unread articles are renumbered

I'm still concerned at the spread of utilities that renumber.
SnzPrune coexists with the present Expire because that Expire
_doesn't_ renumber.  Do you check for the existence of a .del
file?

Is there actually a demand for a smarter Expire that retains
unread articles?  But there's certainly demand for an Expire
that doesn't trash the world on a cloudy day, so I wholeheartedly
support your other work on this.

wb> to fit with the articles which are newer than the threshold.  In
wb> consequence, the history information is only wrong - if there - for the
wb> articles kept because they are marked as unread.  This requires a second
wb> pass through the index file for each affectd group.

I can't recall why history.snw contains article numbers.
Anyone know?

There have been a few requests for SnzPrune to do expiration
at the same time.  I've added this partially -- there's an
option to expire groups, but so far I've only implemented
expiration for those groups that are already being pruned
(i.e. have a .del file).

I have had _some_ requests (well, at least one) for expiration
that's much MUCH smarter.  E.g. only remove articles if ALL
articles in a THREAD are older than the limit, perhaps
with/without consideration of their read/unread status.

I think that's a major project for someone, best handled
by a separate utility that spits out .del files, so that
it needn't be distracted by efficiency and newsbase integrity.

Questions arise like "What is a thread?", is it (1) something
which is grouped into a "thread" in Snews by comparing
the subject according to various rules about length, 're:',
digits, etc, or (2) by examining References: lines, which are
notorious for being inadequately supported by some
newsreaders.

This article is an example.  Demon.ip.developers readers will
see this article in a new thread if they use Snews.  But the
References: line makes it clear that it's a continuation of
previous discussion, which more sophisticated newsreaders
might show as a single thread.  And yet the unwary might
think the 3 msg ids in that line refer to quite a short
discussion, just between me and Walter, whereas there've
been about 3 dozen msgs in that thread from a variety of
contributors, starting on 17 April.  A really smart utility
wouldn't yet expire any of those articles, even if the
expiry time were short.

--
John Washington