Hi BillW!

On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, William Chops Westfield wrote:

>     BTW, *please* don't post attachments to the list. URLS only. Now the
>     piclist archives have an -incorrect- (see below) copy on file for all
>     eternity and for all 'unaware' users to try.
>
> Followed by a correction, though.
>
> I have mixed feelings about this.  While code/etc in a mailing list
> archive (personal or otherwise) runs the risk of being broken or
> outdated, URLs are all too prone to dissappearing without a trace.

Exactly. So why add Yet Another Potentially Soon Outdated copy to the mix?
It is not a 'risk,' it -will- happen. 99% guaranteed. OK, slightly less
likely with PICUART because it is very complete and a sort of defacto
standard. But never know. It also adds another bunch-k to the piclist.com
server load with no appreciable benefit.

> People even DIE unexpectedly (without properly providing for the
> continuation of their web presense in their wills.  Imagine!)

Actually I knew one BBS guy with Nam-related long term very bad health and
literally never knew which moment he was gonna tip over. So he had a 'drop
dead' daily event in the BBS that if he didn't touch once a day would send
out a bunch of human readable netmails, other machine readables that would
disconnect his system from others, reconfigure the system, and shut down.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depends on POV, one day it worked. :/

> I think I prefer to have a URL, a local copy, and archive copy, AND some
> sort of semi-unique string that works with a search engine...

I do exactly the opposite. I keep nothing except a few bookmarks. I
operate under the assumption that everything I have will be updated or
even obsolete within three months, and subscribe to every possible 'new
version' mailing list for the stuff that I use.  For the software that
doesn't have such lists, once in a while I'll take a look through the
system, think 'wonder if that's gone stale' and look at the source site
again. As often as not there're updates. Then again I'm using mostly Linux
which seems to have far more frequent updates for most software.

Have a :) day!

jb

--
jim barchuk
jb@jbarchuk.com

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