Re: [9fans] NNTP client for Plan9

Re: [9fans] NNTP client for Plan9

[Anthony Sorace]

//Nntpfs would present a heirarchy of messages only,

are you looking to serve groups or individual messages
as files? if you present the group as a file, and pay
attention to structuring, i'd imagine you could simply
use existing mail clients, the same way they currently
use upas/fs. that doesn't take care of threading...

do threading the way upas/fs represents multi-level
MIME messages? that's probably not the greatest idea,
on the chance that someone posts a real multi-level
MIME message. just a thought.

i like the file system approach vs. the database
approach. for one thing, it's a better fit with the
existing Plan 9 model, and possibly (as noted) even
with existing applications. given the number of new
people turning on to Plan 9 as of the 3rd edition,
i don't think compatability with forsyth's 2nd ed.
reader is much of an issue.
: anothy;

Re: [9fans] NNTP client for Plan9

[forsyth]

>>i don't think compatability with forsyth's 2nd ed.
>>reader is much of an issue.

it relies on messages arranged in the obvious hierarchy
and on the existence of .overview files therein.
i don't know where the `database' aspect came in.
nothing like that is used on the client side of the news software.

the news server keeps a database of sorts (because it must)
mapping message ID to file names, but it's a specialised hashed file
scheme used by other news servers, nothing too database-y.
it needs to know when it has seen an article and needs to provide
fetching by message-ID for the NNTP server (netscape relies on it, for instance).

Re: [9fans] NNTP client for Plan9

[okamoto]

>Nntpfs would present a heirarchy of messages only,  

Although probaly Charles will write something on this, I remind
we discussed this point ever before.  Your approach would be 
welcome.   I suppose Charles just had not enough time.

This is not a technical point, however, we'll have another aspect
on this news server issue, Political Reason.  It may destroy all the
good technique completely.   If suffering from this situation, no
NNTPfs approach could not be real.  By this reason, I'm getting 
news articles as a client, and to store them to our secondary news 
server on Plan 9.  Yes, this is redicurous, but it may refrect some 
point around news server at present day...

Kenji

[9fans] NNTP client for Plan9

[steve.simon]

Hi,

I planned to write an NNTP client service for Plan9, unfortunately I have been
very
distracted by work (shame) for the last couple of months, however the end (of
the panic)
is in sight.

Nntpfs would present a heirarchy of messages only, and would require a seperate
user-agent to allow people to read the items; a bit of rc script at its
simplest.

It would keep a cache of downloaded messages, and would download the headers on
walk(5), and the
remainder of the message when the file is opened and a read peformed past the
end of the header. 

Unfortunately this is not directly compatable with what Charles Forsyth wrote.
I'am not sure
whether to take a more database aproach he used, or ,to modify his user-agent to
use my
aproach.

Opinions?

-Steve