Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!news
From: da...@jane.jpl.nasa.gov (David Robinson)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Why call it C news?
Message-ID: <1989Aug18.201907.20900@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 18 Aug 89 20:19:07 GMT
Reply-To: da...@jane.jpl.nasa.gov (David Robinson)
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Grp, JPL
Lines: 21

One thing that has puzzled me.  Why is C news called "C" news?  "A" 
(the original) had a completely different article format from "B"
news.  Special processing is required to process an A article under
B news.  C news uses the same transport protocol, same message format,
and from the outside looks identical to B news.  Except for the minor
changes to the history file it appears to just be a total rewrite
of the B news code, just like 3.0 news (aka TMNN).

I can see the possible confusion with 3.0 news in the numbering
scheme but didn't C news start first?  Why wasn't it news 3.0?

	-David

P.S. I use C news and think that Geoff and Henry have done an amazingly
good job on the code, I just wonder about the name.


	David Robinson		elroy!da...@csvax.caltech.edu     ARPA
				da...@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov	  ARPA
				{cit-vax,ames}!elroy!david	  UUCP
Disclaimer: No one listens to me anyway!

Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utstat!geoff
From: ge...@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: Why call it C news?
Message-ID: <1989Aug19.001609.29506@utstat.uucp>
Organization: Statistics, U. of Toronto
References: <1989Aug18.201907.20900@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 89 00:16:09 GMT

David Robinson:
>Why is C news called "C" news? ... it appears to just be a total rewrite
>of the B news code, just like 3.0 news (aka TMNN).

I invented the name "C news" to make it plain that our code was written
from scratch, contains no B news code and never did contain any B news
code.  The "official" name of TMNN is B 3.0 news; from what Eric has
said to us, it did start life as B 2.11 news and was then rewritten,
piece by piece.

>I can see the possible confusion with 3.0 news in the numbering
>scheme but didn't C news start first?  Why wasn't it news 3.0?

We started on C news during 1985.  Henry wrote C expire first, then I
wrote C relaynews in the fall of 1985 and coined the name "C news" at
that time.  I gather TMNN started a year or more later.  In 1985, we
had no idea whether or not Rick would some day want to release a B 3.0
news of his own, and our code isn't B news.
-- 
Geoff Collyer		utzoo!utstat!geoff, ge...@utstat.toronto.edu