Subject: Pine vs NX

From: Michael <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 15:21:17 -0800

Hello,

Just found a interesting thing this morning between the News Xpress (NX) 
and Pine. Here's what happened... 

I was having some problems with the speed of my video card so I thought I
would check out Comp.Sys.IBM.PC.Hardware.Video and see if anyone had left
any messages similar to the problems I was having.

So I connected to my ISP with PPP and started NX. Clicked view all, double-
clicked c.s.i.p.h.v. NewsGroup and the articles started to load in. This
was taking a very long time, so I started NetTerm and went into my Shell. 
Started Pine and added the c.s.i.p.h.v. NewsGroup to my list and had it
fetch the articles too. 

Pine finished before NX, and I started to look around. Finally NX was done
and then I noticed something strange.

Pine had received 2700+ new articles and NX had received 4100+ new
articles.  Obviously this was the reason that NX took so much longer then
Pine, but why not a closer amount of new articles then 1400?

I HAVE NEVER viewed this group before, so it wasn't a matter of one NEWSRC
file for one program that was different then the other for the same group.

So my question is... Why such a big differents in the amount of new
articles between two different programs, receiving the same NewsGroup at
the same time?

Here are some of the theories that my ISP's Tech Support and I came up
with...

NX does not understand deleted files on the news server, so it loaded in
all the articles that it found, even old one and pine does understand the
differents.

- or -

Since Pine is a memory/cpu hog, there is a cap that has been placed on
Pine so that it can only hog... errr um :) ... fetch only so many articles.

...Are we close? Is it something else?

Thanks for reading and any suggestions are welcomed.

Michael ([email-masked])

Press CTRL + L-AMIGA + R-AMIGA to continue...

---

From: "Steve \"Stevers!\" Coile" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 10:56:39 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 25 Nov 1996, Michael wrote:
[...]
> all the articles that it found, even old one and pine does understand the

Unlikely.  INN, the most prevalent news server, doesn't keep "deleted"
articles on the server, it deletes them.  If an article's been cancelled,
the client never sees it.

> Pine so that it can only hog... errr um :) ... fetch only so many articles.

Doubtfull, but possible, I suppose.

> ...Are we close? Is it something else?

If you read other groups that have articles crossposted to this new group
you read, perhaps Pine is smart enough to recognize articles that you've
already seen in other groups.

--
    Steve Coile           P a t r i o t  N e t      Systems Engineering
 [email-masked]      Patriot Computer Group        (703) 277-7737

---

From: Michael <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 20:57:50 -0800 (PST)

Hi Steve,

On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, Steve "Stevers!" Coile wrote:

: On Mon, 25 Nov 1996, Michael wrote:
: [...]
: > NX does not understand deleted files on the news server, so it loaded
: > in all the articles that it found, even old one and pine does
: > understand the differents.
: 
: Unlikely.  INN, the most prevalent news server, doesn't keep "deleted"
: articles on the server, it deletes them.  If an article's been cancelled,
: the client never sees it.
:

Well, I don't know what to make of it then. If, as you say, the articles
has be cancelled and it shouldn't be read by the NewsReader, then there is
something screwy going on. 1400 messages is a big difference between two
NewsReaders, reading the same NewsGroup at the same time, and with zero
messages read previously. Oh well. 

: > - or -
: > 
: > Since Pine is a memory/cpu hog, there is a cap that has been placed on
: > Pine so that it can only hog... errr um :) ... fetch only so many articles.
: 
: Doubtful, but possible, I suppose.
:

This turned out not to be the case since I was able to read all 32,000+ new
articles in news.newusers.questions with PINE. NX crashed do to the fact
that there was more the 16K worth of articles (16-bit NX bug; I should of
remembered that before I started). 

: > ...Are we close? Is it something else?
: 
: If you read other groups that have articles crossposted to this new group
: you read, perhaps Pine is smart enough to recognize articles that you've
: already seen in other groups.
: 

That I know for sure doesn't work in PINE or NX, I wish, but sadly no they
don't do that.

On a side note:

Do you know if it is normal for the default composer (PICO) to have trouble
justifying a line once the message has been postponed?

It seems it loses track of the character used for quoting
(reply-indent-string = : in my case) and justifies the hole line missing
the point of what the reply-indent-string is for. 

This DOESN'T happen if I do the same thing to the original message before a
postpone, only after the message was postponed.

Do you think that PICO has the problem, do to PINE not relaying the
information correctly? Or is it PINE not giving the information to PICO? Or
is it that PINE is trying to give the information to PICO, but PICO doesn't
understand? 

Only when a message is postponed does this problem occur.

Thanks for the reply.