Re: [Pan-users] Aggregating servers (was Re: choosing news server)

[David Kelly]

On Jul 4, 2006, at 4:18 PM, walt wrote:

> > I'm sorry to say I found it so contrary to the way I work, that I  
> > gave up
> > entirely, until the new version reaches 1.0 -- which, I hope, I hope
> > (pretty please with sugar on it?) may make it an option whether to
> > aggregate them. Is there hope?
>
> No idea.  But, at this particular moment, I would agree.  I'm willing
> to wait for group-specific preferences first, though, and then start
> complaining :o)

I don't want my earlier comments to be considered a complaint. Its  
just an observation as not everyone operates in the same environment.  
I happen to have access to two news servers. The fast one is also the  
easiest and usually Good Enough. The slow one is usually perfect  
where the fast one fails.

The prior generation pan would sometimes block on downloading a  
multipart binary when one part was listed but not available from the  
server. Sometimes I could download as text and manually reassemble  
with yydecode. Never figured out how to convince pan to break open  
what it thought was a complete multipart binary and let me at each  
part individually.

Aggregated servers would be fantastic as when I have had this problem  
usually only one part was missing. But when it happens a large number  
of par segments have the same problem. If par won't download that par  
segment at all for one little missing message then the whole thing  
can quickly get beyond the ability of par2 to repair.

Repeating what I have said before, fortunately the old pan connects  
message parts in cache from one server when another server is added.  
Queue the same stalled multipart using a different server and it  
restarts using the cache state as of that moment.

So in some ways the old pan was close to having aggregated servers,  
at least for my purposes.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, address@hidden
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.