Hello Wilfred,

On Monday February 05 2018 17:29, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> Some people still prefer gas light over electric. If we have to
 MvdV>> halt progress because a small number of people still prefer the
 MvdV>> old way, there would be no progress.

 WV> Progress would be using a better compression algorithm! ;)

I disagree. Compression algoritmes have evolved way past the law of decreasing
added value. Adding another few tenth od a percent is nor worth the hassle.

 WV>>> For storage it also has it's advantages:
 WV>>> - Less space used.

 MvdV>> Mwah.. The ENTIRE Fidonews archive from day 1 till today is
 MvdV>> less than 100Mb uncompressed. Less than 0,25% of my smallest
 MvdV>> Hard Drive. Try to buy a HD smaller than 40GB these days.

 WV> You shouldn't just store fidonews in compressed form, but all your
 WV> files as much as possible, than it matters.

Then use the OS's disk compression instead of compression each fikle
individually.

 MvdV>> Plus that nothing stops anyone from using their preferred
 MvdV>> compression for archiving purposes.

 WV> That argument also works the other way arround. Nothing stops you (or
 WV> anyone else), to decompress the received zip file, and store it
 WV> uncompressed.

That is extra work for me... Let those who want the (percieved) advantage of
compression carry the burden.

 WV>>> That would break the chronological order of the files when you
 WV>>> list a directory with FNEWS (zip)files alphabetically (which
 WV>>> most filesystems do).

So what? What is the advantage of chronological order over alphabetical order?

 MvdV>> Do as I do, store each year in a sperate directory.

 WV> That's extra work, and not necessary currently.

On the contrary, it makes it much easier to retrieve old issues.

 WV>>> I suggest changing FNEWS to FNEWT. Maybe not so nice,

 MvdV>> Rightout ugly.

 WV> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ;)

 MvdV>> And if not... we can use FNEWS0A1.NWS for the first issue of
 MvdV>> 2044. Just like we do with numbers on a car's license plate.
 MvdV>> Nobody complains that /those/ do not sort chronologically.

 WV> That's apples and oranges. License plates are never stored in a
 WV> directory where they can be sorted alphabetical/chronological.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y9lqkuqj


Cheers, Michiel

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