Re: yEnc support in Gnus?

[Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>]

Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de> writes:

> Please refrain from adding yEnc to Gnus. yEnc is junk, it has a bad
> implementation, is not MIME-aware and does not solve any problem without
> giving rise to new problems. base64 is well-proven and robust. yEnc is
> not.

I agree with everything above, except the first sentence.  yEnc is
quickly becoming a de facto standard for binaries on parts of the net,
and Gnus ought to provide at least decoding support, no matter how
much it suck.  Of course, provided someone actually volunteer to
implement it.

Also, to yEncs defence, while a lot of us had clever ideas of how to
provide more optimized mechanisms for transport of binaries over 8bit
lines, the yEnc creator actually went ahead and implemented a
solution.  Somehow it warms my heart to see that the net is still be
shaped by an individual who actually go ahead and program something,
despite the discouragement from all us old talking heads.  Kind of
like when Bill Joy got tired of waiting for the official telnet and
ftp protocols, and went ahead and implemented rsh and rcp.