Should attachments be accepted in comp.lang.c?

[goose]

Mikhail Teterin wrote:

You may also start another thread on the subject:

Should everyone be *forced* to post in the same manner?

Because I don't see, how your troubles (or lack thereof) are supposed to
compell *me*. My postings are on-topic of the news-group, and so are the
attachements.

I'm at a loss over this desire for uniformity, you are displaying...

If, in the words of a longtime clc reg, you had engaged your
brain before posting, you would've realised that KT and the other
regs do not force or ban, they merely encourage for the sake
of keeping clc useful. Uniformity helps keep clc useful.

While I'm here, let me quickly go over the objections raised so far:

* Various systems will automatically strip attachments from news
posts, or even totally suppress the post.

That's a problem with those "various systems". A poster, aware of the issue,
may still attach C-code to postings, hurting no one, but him/herself.

Thus making clc less useful (even if it's only less useful to
the poster).

* It is inconvenient for me to have to download an attachment

That's a reason for *you* not to bother, but not a reason to ban such posts.

Not "ban", "encourage".

* Allowing attachments certainly won't help encourage people to post

Uhh, place a maximum size limit, then. This is silly...

We can't, we can only encourage and it tends to be easier to
encourage posting of minimal code by posting inline code
segments in posts rather than posting code in an attachment.

<snipped>

data point: I use google groups through lynx for reading
and lynx + vim for writing. Code inline is easily taken care
of by pressing "p" and saving to a filename. I haven't come
across any attachments (perhaps they don't show up on google?)
but I suspect that it should be just as easy to save an
attachment, maybe not as easy to merely view.

goose,

 

[ena8t8si]

Recently a poster here posted some C code as an attachment.

Should attachments (text only) be considered acceptable in this
newsgroup?

Out of curiosity I tried looking at a news posting (the
one mentioned) with an attachment on one of the systems
I use regularly.

The attachment was presented as a link, which needed to
be separately downloaded. Then to read the downloaded
attachment file it took starting another application
(I chose my regular editor). For whatever reason some
of the character codes weren't mapped correctly, and
the whole file was shown as a single long line.

I also tried starting a reply in the newsreader to see
what would happen there. The newsreader did include
the attachment in the reply, but also put in the MIME
header lines along with the regular text. Following
usual netnews etiquette would then mean going back and
editing out those lines manually.

I don't really see any upside for postings to have
attachments rather than using just regular message
text. Large files or sets of file shouldn't be
posted directly but given as links instead (again
by conventional netnews etiquette).

Those are my observations. The conclusion seems
obvious.

 

[Dik T. Winter]

> data point: I use google groups through lynx for reading
> and lynx + vim for writing. Code inline is easily taken care
> of by pressing "p" and saving to a filename. I haven't come
> across any attachments (perhaps they don't show up on google?)
> but I suspect that it should be just as easy to save an
> attachment, maybe not as easy to merely view.

Google groups shows the attachments as links. It depends on your
browser how those links are handled if you click on them.

 

[Herbert Rosenau]

Well, it isn't only spammers; there are insane people, and there are
sane people who consider it less wrong than whatever they are thinking
of at the time.

In text groups I interpret any mail having attachement simply as spam.
Because when the poster has nothing to hide he would include it
directly instead attach it.

In binary groups my newsreader will magically decode mime and store
attachements into a separate folder created only for that. I use 3
different programs to view that folder:
- an intelligent picture viewer to look at pictures ans save from it
into a location created for pictures of that kind
when it is woth to be saved
- a music editor to look at the music, play it and store it into
the right folder when it is worth to save
- a unix like commandline program (rm *) to cleanup the folder.
because anything left is either spam, malware or even not worth to
view it.

Spammers and malware authors likes to attach theyr crap and infect
mashines.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid as I have never seen any kind of malware able
to run on my OS I give it no chance.

But either way, whether it is only spammers or not, the virus/malware
argument doesn't have any bearing on the question of why his
maximum size limit should compel -me-. Who is he to judge what
the size limit should be? Is this or is this not an anarchist
collective, in which each person decides for themselves which
rules they wish to follow?

Untrue. When you uses windows you gets the malware shown as
"harmless.txt" but it is really
"harmless.txt .exe"
and gets executed magically by clicking on it. It may be or may be not
harmless - but most often it is harmfull.

Anybody who has nothing to hide will include text in its artikle
instead attach it.

This has nothing to do with the size of an attachement. It is
irrelevant if the attachement is only 3KB or 3MB. Any attachement
outside binary groups is crap per definition.

There are many servers around who will not even deliver attachements
in newsgroups, some of them will even kill the whole artikle holding
one.

--
Tschau/Bye
Herbert

Visit http://www.ecomstation.de the home of german eComStation
eComStation 1.2 Deutsch ist da!

 

[Rod Pemberton]

I appreciate what you're saying. However, I think a root issue is a
dichotomy of philosophies. Many see the group as primarily a literary
medium-- a well-spoken matching of wits followed by a gradual
devolution into a flamewar, with intellectual proceeds going to charity
(aka the OP). Attachments are simply more noise in an already faint
signal. On the other hand, many don't see what all the fuss is about.

I personally have no problem writing code for others, or solving problems
labelled as homework. But, many here oppose that. The "group" is serving
some purposes and obliterates others. It needs to be "split" to provide
"appropriate" forums.

comp.lang.c.attachments
comp.lang.c.code
comp.lang.c.homework
comp.lang.c.pedantic
comp.lang.c.lsbc
comp.lang.c.posix
comp.lang.c.knr
comp.lang.c.iso
comp.lang.c.ansi
comp.lang.c.misc


Rod Pemberton

 

[Rod Pemberton]

The same in Netscape or Thunderbird with "ALT-v u".

The same in Microsoft Outlook with right-click or alt-enter, properties,
details-tab, message-source-button.

Rod Pemberton

 

[Rod Pemberton]

Recently a poster here posted some C code as an attachment.

Should attachments (text only) be considered acceptable in this
newsgroup?

I don't recall the subject even coming up until just a few days ago.
Almost everyone here posts C code as plain inline text.

I think we can agree that binary attachments are inappropriate. But
what about text-only attachments? It's argued that newsreaders that
don't handle attachments will display them as plain inline text, and
those that do will handle them in some convenient manner.

In fact, it appears that a text attachment in a posted article is
represented as approximately 4 header lines, followed by the content
of the attachment, followed by 1 trailer line. (I determined this by
grabbing a copy of the orginal article in question using a small Perl
script and the NNTP protocol, rather than via a newsreader; I expect
that a newsreader that doesn't understand attachments would simply
display the extra lines along with the content.)

Personally, I tend to prefer inline text rather than attachments, even
for multiple chunks of code. If I want to try compiling a posted
piece of code, I copy it from the window in which I'm reading news,
then paste it into a window on the machine where I want to compile it.
If I had to save the attachment to do this, I'd have to copy the
resulting file from one machine to another; not impossible, of course,
but inconvenient enough that I often wouldn't bother. Of course,
others will have different preferences.

I'll offer one data point. I read news using Gnus, a newsreader that
runs under GNU Emacs. It handles attachments reasonable well; the
file name is displayed in bold text, and the attachment is expanded
inline after I move the cursor on top of it and press <enter>. (Note
that I'm referring to a text cursor, not a mouse cursor, so moving it
to the right spot can require several keystrokes.) I presume there's
command to save the attachment as a file, but I haven't bothered to
find out. As I said, I prefer inline text to attachments, but I can
deal with them if there's a consensus that they're acceptable. If
there are people using newsreaders that make plain-text attachments
difficult to handle, I suggest that attachments should be discouraged.

This was discussed recently in the "passing a union's field to a
function" thread, particularly in the "Posting sample C-code as
attachment" subthread. There was some disagreement about whether any
conclusion had been reached. I thought it would be useful to have
this discussion in its own thread.

If anyone cares, the only problem I've had with attachments in other
newsgroups is that my newsreader automatically flags certain extensions as
virii and blocks access to them. I then have to manually disable
protections...

Rod Pemberton

 

[Flash Gordon]

This is a discussion group, not a sources group. If people want to
post code to be commented on, it should either be short and inline, or
a link. If tehy want to post code to share, this is the wrong placae.

My news reader displays text attachments inline so reading an article
with attachments is not a problem to me. However, if I want to comment
on the code I would then have to copy and paste code from the
attachments rather than being able to simply hit reply and comment on
the relevant sections. So I would not bother doing detailed critiques of
the code (whether my critiques are of value is for the individual
readers to decide). I suspect others may find they have the same problem.

So I agree with those who say attachments should be discouraged and may
even set my local news feed to drop posts with attachments, and if I do
that it will block a few other people from seeing posts with attachments.

 

[Mark McIntyre]

The "group" is serving
some purposes and obliterates others. It needs to be "split" to provide
"appropriate" forums.

Feel free to formally propose all the groups you want. Myself, I plan
to read & post in CLC.

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Al Balmer]

I personally have no problem writing code for others, or solving problems
labelled as homework.

I suggest you post a working email address. I'm sure you'll get lots
of requests ;-)

But, many here oppose that.

Yep. There's enough bad code in the world - why graduate more CS
students that can't even begin writing a program?

 

[Rod Pemberton]

I suggest you post a working email address. I'm sure you'll get lots
of requests ;-)

I don't have a working email address by choice. And, it couldn't be any
worse than spam was when I had email. At the minimum, it would offer me
something: a challenge, instead of people just asking for my money. ;-)

Yep. There's enough bad code in the world - why graduate more CS
students that can't even begin writing a program?

Well, from "The Prince," Machiavelli, Chapter 22, of course ;-) :

"...there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself;
another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither
comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most
excellent, the second is good, the third is useless."

"By the showing of others," the second class of intellect, apparently
learns...

Perhaps you're right about email, at least I could weed out the abundant
third class, unlike here...

Besides, if Universities or Corporate America really wanted skilled
programmers, they wouldn't use any programming language created by a PHD,
EE, CS, or HS graduate, etc. They'd hire a bunch chain smoking, drinking,
occasional meth & ectasy users, who flunked out of HS (or MS) by 10th grade,
who enjoy riding motorocycles without a helmet or base jumping, to develop a
programming language. Then, every American and most illegals, could easily
become programmers. And, Corporate America would have what it wants:
"skilled" minimum wage programmers. Of course, that'd have secondary
effects such as killing a major revenue stream: overpriced CS degrees, for
our liberal Universities requiring the termination of employment of many
tenured, overpromoted, and underworked professors. But, all of this
presupposes the necessary condition that Corporate America's managers are
sufficiently smarter than most of the employees they manage to engage such a
plan...


Rod Pemberton

 

[Richard Bos]

Recently a poster here posted some C code as an attachment.

Should attachments (text only) be considered acceptable in this
newsgroup?

That's the wrong question.

Some news servers simply dump (into the bitbucket) _all_ posts with
attachments in text newsgroups, regardless of what's in the attachments.
You might want to ask whether these servers, rather than this newsgroup,
should accept such posts. Since HTML is also plain text, the answer will
probably be "no bloody way".

Richard

 

[Al Balmer]

I don't have a working email address by choice. And, it couldn't be any
worse than spam was when I had email. At the minimum, it would offer me
something: a challenge, instead of people just asking for my money. ;-)

When I was still an independent, I sometimes replied to emails asking
for help with homework by sending my rate chart ;-) Oddly enough, they
didn't usually ask again.

Well, from "The Prince," Machiavelli, Chapter 22, of course ;-) :

"...there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself;
another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither
comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most
excellent, the second is good, the third is useless."

"By the showing of others," the second class of intellect, apparently
learns...

The "showing" is what we aspire to here, in a minimalist way, so that
the learner can "appreciate what others comprehend" and perhaps
eventually enter the first class. The doing of homework for the
student perpetuates the third class.

I see two good responses to homework here, depending on the problem
presented. If the homework is such that any reasonably intelligent
person who has paid at least minimal attention to his instruction
could make a stab at it, that's what is recommended. Try it, then come
back. If the problem is more difficult, and the student is having a
hard time getting started, some directional pointers or suggestions
for research are appropriate.

Doing the homework for the student does him no favor in the long run.
In fact, those who jump in with a complete solution to the problem are
often less-than-expert programmers anxious to display their own skill,
and are often wrong. We've seen that demonstrated here many times.

Perhaps you're right about email, at least I could weed out the abundant
third class, unlike here...

Besides, if Universities or Corporate America really wanted skilled
programmers, they wouldn't use any programming language created by a PHD,
EE, CS, or HS graduate, etc. They'd hire a bunch chain smoking, drinking,
occasional meth & ectasy users, who flunked out of HS (or MS) by 10th grade,
who enjoy riding motorocycles without a helmet or base jumping, to develop a
programming language. Then, every American and most illegals, could easily
become programmers. And, Corporate America would have what it wants:
"skilled" minimum wage programmers. Of course, that'd have secondary
effects such as killing a major revenue stream: overpriced CS degrees, for
our liberal Universities requiring the termination of employment of many
tenured, overpromoted, and underworked professors.

Heh. You've reminded me of a year when we hired an assistant professor
of CS for the summer. I don't know how good a teacher he was, but he
failed miserably at his first assignment of developing a program to
crossreference variables in a Basic program. He couldn't decide how to
sort the 260 possible variable names.

 

[Al Balmer]

Heh. You've reminded me of a year when we hired an assistant professor
of CS for the summer. I don't know how good a teacher he was, but he
failed miserably at his first assignment of developing a program to
crossreference variables in a Basic program. He couldn't decide how to
sort the 260 possible variable names.

Oops - make that 286.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Doing the homework for the student does him no favor in the long
run. In fact, those who jump in with a complete solution to the
problem are often less-than-expert programmers anxious to display
their own skill, and are often wrong. We've seen that demonstrated
here many times.

Some times we can amuse ourselves by giving him an elegant solution
that is obviously far beyond his capacity to create or even
understand. This might encourage him to pass it in and get a zero
mark for plagiarism. This soothes our own egos, and teaches some
sort of lesson. I like to pass such source through a filter that
justifies it into nicely squared up paragraphs before posting it.

 

[Mabden]

Well, from "The Prince," Machiavelli, Chapter 22, of course ;-) :

"...there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself;
another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither
comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most
excellent, the second is good, the third is useless."

My copy has a slightly different version, so I thought I would add it to the
history of the internet:

From "The Prince And the Discourses" Translated by Luigi Ricci & ERP Vincent

"There are three different kinds of brains, the one understands thing
unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third
understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others. The first
kind is most excellent, the second also excellent, but the third useless."

I think this version is a more contemporary usage, better to serve the
purpose of the original manuscript in today's context.

 

[Mabden]

Some times we can amuse ourselves by giving him an elegant solution
that is obviously far beyond his capacity to create or even
understand. This might encourage him to pass it in and get a zero
mark for plagiarism. This soothes our own egos, and teaches some
sort of lesson. I like to pass such source through a filter that
justifies it into nicely squared up paragraphs before posting it.

Flaw in the ointment:
I remember an electronics class in high school (I do not work in
electronics, BTW) where we had to build a device and my math was good but
the dumb circuit didn't get it. Someone had a very elegant solution that
eliminated several "thingys", and was truely elegant. About 10 of us used
it, and we all passed the class.

Just because you cheat, it doesn't mean that the teacher gave a crap that
day! Cheating works!

Funny follow-up, on the day of graduation that teacher had never given me
credit for the class, and I could have NOT been eligible for graduation. He
walked past me on that day and looked at me and said, "They're not letting
YOU graduate, are they..." and walked away. A very OMG moment!
Scary stuff at the time.

 

[Frederick Gotham]

CBFalconer posted:

Some times we can amuse ourselves by giving him an elegant solution
that is obviously far beyond his capacity to create or even
understand. This might encourage him to pass it in and get a zero
mark for plagiarism. This soothes our own egos, and teaches some
sort of lesson. I like to pass such source through a filter that
justifies it into nicely squared up paragraphs before posting it.

If I end up teaching computer programming, I'm going to test the students by
sitting down with them one at a time and watching them write a simple
program, e.g. "Write a program to convert celcius to farenheit".

 

[Andrew Poelstra]

CBFalconer posted:


If I end up teaching computer programming, I'm going to test the students by
sitting down with them one at a time and watching them write a simple
program, e.g. "Write a program to convert celcius to farenheit".

Teachers like that hate students like me; I tend to question every single
specification. (Do you want floating-point or integer? How much precision?)

With some complicated projects, I've pulled A's off without doing any real
work because the teacher couldn't see how I wouldn't get one. (I actually
had a highschool teacher tell me that he didn't want to "waste my time".)

Returning somewhat to the original topic:
During those occasions when I did give other people my work, they were
thoroughly screwed by it. They'd do oral presentations that they couldn't
pronounce, draw diagrams of things they'd never heard of, or elaborate
on facts that I'd made up. (Yes, I did that. Several times.)

All of them passed, I believe, but barely. They'd have been better off
repeating the course and getting a better mark. The only exception was
electronics, where group work was allowed and I had nothing better to do
than to build circuits for people. Other than introducing minor bugs and
providing cryptic solutions, I wasn't too much of a jerk about it.

So, in a way, they did get their punishment for cheating, even though I
did provide solutions for them.

 

[Frederick Gotham]

Andrew Poelstra posted:

Teachers like that hate students like me; I tend to question every
single specification. (Do you want floating-point or integer? How much
precision?)

I'm the same. However, if restrictions haven't been imposed, I'll just write
the best program I can (as per *my own* opinion of what is best).