Talk:rn (newsreader)

Untitled[edit]

Here is an example where capitalizing the title is silly. It is not at all commonplace to capitalise UNIX shell commands as then they won't work. --drj

Yes, but if you don't capitalize it, you can't link to it. It's a software feature/bug. --LMS

Yes I know, that's why I mentioned it. It's a bug in this case, IMO. I'm sure we can live with it. --drj

Early versions of 'rn' accessed the Usenet news directly from the server it ran on.

This is not exactly a distinction. Every news reader accessed the spool directly before this new-fangled interweb thing got started. rn is notable because it was the first screen-oriented news reader, and its user interface is still a model today. readnews, the original news reader, was line-oriented. (I'm old enough to remember both.) There was also vn, which was also screen-oriented and roughly contemporaneous with rn, which had a clunkier (more gopher-like as I recall) user interface that's similar in concept to many modern mail clients. 18.24.0.120 07:24, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've now rewritten the main article to clearly spell out what made rn important any what happened to it. 18.24.0.120 06:28, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wayne Davison listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wayne Davison. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 02:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

opinions about autoconfiguration script...[edit]

Edits changing quantifiers probably need a reliable source TEDickey (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since that claim is already unsourced, maybe it should be removed entirely? It is clearly untrue as it is right now. 206.204.236.63 (talk) 22:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The existing link in the paragraph forwards the reader to relevant information. If you disagree, try disproving it, as a start. In a quick check of the makefiles in pkgsrc, only 482 of 19263 packages lack a configure script. I expect similar numbers from any large collection of packages. Given that, it's something that most people will take for granted and question why someone wants to alter it. TEDickey (talk) 23:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

None of the top 25 trending GitHub repos right now have ./configure, while 22 of them have open-source licenses: https://github.com/trending

Of course, that's a small sample, but it makes it highly unlikely that "most" open-source software uses something if none of the top 25 GitHub repositories use it. 206.204.236.63 (talk) 00:22, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

25 is a very small number, compared to the number of repositories (which by the way neither is relevant to the number of programs). Paraphrasing your comment, changing "Most people in the United States speak English" to "Many people in the United States speak English" has the same effect on the meaning. That's arguing from a false premise. TEDickey (talk) 00:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What would you consider to show that "Today, most open source software is distributed with a similar script, such as autoconf" is not true? Would you consider a larger sample of top GitHub repositories, filtered to only ones containing software (not a web site, documentation, etc.) under OSI-approved licenses valid? 206.204.236.63 (talk) 00:58, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, should I ask on article talk pages in the future when an edit is reverted and I don't know why? I've done that on user talk pages so the user gets a notification; is there another way to notify them? 206.204.236.63 (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page is the place to discuss improvements to topics. TEDickey (talk) 23:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I will use article talk pages in the future. Is there a way to notify the user who reverted my edit? 206.204.236.63 (talk) 00:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]