Subj : perl before swine
To   : Maurice Kinal
From : mark lewis
Date : Sat Mar 26 2005 12:07 pm

 RT>> Would make life a little simpler ... :-)

 MK> For who?  If for myself then there will be wholesale changes.
 MK> I could easily get rid of the entire FTN structures and make
 MK> this far more useable.  Whoever invented this messaging
 MK> structure ought to be ashamed.

you need to stop and realise/remember that the format is taken from the actual 
local message storage format just like QWK stuff is taken from the PC Board 
message base format... it was the quickest and easiest way of getting the 
messages in and out of the system... there is very little difference between a 
MSG stored message and a packed message within a PKT... this allowed the tosser 
to pack and toss the messages very fast without having to do a lot of 
interpreting of the necessary header and control data within the message...

as for the path and seenby lines at the end of the message, one also needs to 
note that tossing and scanning were originally two seperate functions... first 
you tossed the messages into the local base and then you scanned them out to 
the systems feeding from you... during one of those two activities, the final 
thing done to the message as it went into the PKT was to adjust the path and 
seenby lines so it was no problem...

with today's methods of tossing to the local as well as downstream systems, it 
is a tad bit harder to handle the control lines at the end of the messages... 
not all that much harder but still harder, anyway...

)\/(ark

 
* Origin: (1:3634/12)

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