From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 17:36:11 PDT
To: hughes@soda.berkeley.edu (Eric Hughes)
Subject: Re: Software infrastructure
In-Reply-To: <9306040522.AA18339@soda.berkeley.edu>
Message-ID: <9306050035.AA12506@triton.unm.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


According to Eric Hughes:
>>Itpuzzles mewhy weare contemplating writing our own comm package when so many 
>>good ones are out there that can be made to serve our purposes.  
> 
> Reliability.  Scripts do not easily handle error conditions that might
> result in lost mail.  They're fine for a few, but they aren't for all.

Well, this is a problem with any nontrivial program.  But a script has going 
for it several very high-level constructs.  As people use any software, the
author will undoubtably have to improve it.  So, what is the difference if
he has to improve a script or a comm program?

> 
> Integration.  Remembering what to do next is a large hurdle.

That's why we have scripts in the first place!  Scripts' main purpose is to 
automate things.  How is this different with a comm program?  You still have to
remember how to use it....


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