I have two unrelated items, both about the newsgroup but not
directly about C.

Recently there seems to be a lot of postings mostly about issues
in other languages (C++, Java, Python, or some others mentioned
in passing) but having little or nothing to do with C. I hope
that people will remember this is comp.lang.c, and that they take
discussions relevant to other languages but not so much about C
to other newsgroups where that discussion is more topical.

Second item: I have the impression that in the last month or so
there have been a handful of postings from James Kuyper, in each
case intended as a direct response to a posting of mine, but not
threaded as a followup posting in the usual newsgroup way. Do
other people also see this? Or more directly, is there someone
who can offer an independent verification of such postings? If
it is happening, does anyone have an idea what might be causing
it?

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On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800, Tim Rentsch wrote:

Recently there seems to be a lot of postings mostly about issues in
other languages (C++, Java, Python, or some others mentioned in passing)
but having little or nothing to do with C.

From <https://clc-wiki.net/wiki/C_community:comp.lang.c:Introduction>:

1.4 What's not topical in comp.lang.c?

...

OS-specific questions, such as how to clear the screen, access
windowing or graphical interfaces, access the network, list
the files in a directory, or read "piped" output from a
subprocess. These questions should be directed to OS-specific
newsgroups, such as comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc,
comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32, comp.unix.programmer
(general Unix: processes, pipes, POSIX, curses, sockets),
comp.os.linux.development.apps, comp.os.msdos.programmer (DOS,
BIOS, memory models, interrupts, screen handling, hardware),
comp.os.os2.programmer.misc, comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc,
comp.unix.[vendor].

Compiler-specific questions, such as installation issues and
locations of header files. Ask about these in
compiler-specific newsgroups, such as gnu.gcc.help,
comp.os.msdos.djgpp (x86 version of the free gcc C compiler),
comp.compilers.lcc (the LCC family of C compilers including
LCC-Win32).

Writing a compiler. Ask about doing that in comp.compilers
(compiler construction and theory, moderated).

Processor-specific questions, such as questions about assembly
and machine code. x86 questions are appropriate in
comp.lang.asm.x86, embedded system processor questions may be
appropriate in comp.arch.embedded.

ABI-specific questions, such as how to interface assembly code
to C. These questions are both processor- and OS-specific and
should typically be asked in OS-specific newsgroups.

Algorithms, except questions about C implementations of
algorithms. "How do I implement algorithm X in C?" is not a
question about a C implementation of an algorithm, it is a
request for source code. Appropriate newsgroups may be:
comp.programming, comp.theory, comp.graphics.algorithms.

The C Standard, as opposed to standard C. Questions about the
C standard are best asked in comp.std.c.

C++. Please do not post or cross-post questions about C++ to
comp.lang.c. Ask C++ questions in C++ newsgroups, such as
comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c++.moderated.

Making C interoperate with other languages. C has no
facilities for such interoperation. These questions should be
directed to system- or compiler-specific newsgroups. C++ has
features for interoperating with C, so for such questions
consider comp.lang.c++.

Feel free to go over all the recent postings in this group, and tell
me how many would be left if you strictly obeyed the above criteria.

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On 1/28/24 19:26, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800, Tim Rentsch wrote:

Recently there seems to be a lot of postings mostly about issues in
other languages (C++, Java, Python, or some others mentioned in passing)
but having little or nothing to do with C.

From <https://clc-wiki.net/wiki/C_community:comp.lang.c:Introduction>:

1.4 What's not topical in comp.lang.c?

...

OS-specific questions, such as how to clear the screen, access
windowing or graphical interfaces, access the network, list
the files in a directory, or read "piped" output from a
subprocess. These questions should be directed to OS-specific
newsgroups, such as comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc,
comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32, comp.unix.programmer
(general Unix: processes, pipes, POSIX, curses, sockets),
comp.os.linux.development.apps, comp.os.msdos.programmer (DOS,
BIOS, memory models, interrupts, screen handling, hardware),
comp.os.os2.programmer.misc, comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc,
comp.unix.[vendor].

Compiler-specific questions, such as installation issues and
locations of header files. Ask about these in
compiler-specific newsgroups, such as gnu.gcc.help,
comp.os.msdos.djgpp (x86 version of the free gcc C compiler),
comp.compilers.lcc (the LCC family of C compilers including
LCC-Win32).

Writing a compiler. Ask about doing that in comp.compilers
(compiler construction and theory, moderated).

Processor-specific questions, such as questions about assembly
and machine code. x86 questions are appropriate in
comp.lang.asm.x86, embedded system processor questions may be
appropriate in comp.arch.embedded.

ABI-specific questions, such as how to interface assembly code
to C. These questions are both processor- and OS-specific and
should typically be asked in OS-specific newsgroups.

Algorithms, except questions about C implementations of
algorithms. "How do I implement algorithm X in C?" is not a
question about a C implementation of an algorithm, it is a
request for source code. Appropriate newsgroups may be:
comp.programming, comp.theory, comp.graphics.algorithms.

The C Standard, as opposed to standard C. Questions about the
C standard are best asked in comp.std.c.

C++. Please do not post or cross-post questions about C++ to
comp.lang.c. Ask C++ questions in C++ newsgroups, such as
comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c++.moderated.

Making C interoperate with other languages. C has no
facilities for such interoperation. These questions should be
directed to system- or compiler-specific newsgroups. C++ has
features for interoperating with C, so for such questions
consider comp.lang.c++.

Feel free to go over all the recent postings in this group, and tell
me how many would be left if you strictly obeyed the above criteria.

Perhaps it's time to change the criteria, especially since comp.lang.c
has enough eyeballs on it to be useful unlike so many other newsgroups.

I think it would make sense to expand the official scope of the
newsgroup to any topic related to C, even funky half-baked K&R-era implementations on long-dead architectures.

I don't see why a question on, e.g., x86-64 SIMD instructions would need
to be off-topic here if the OP is using a C compiler with builtin
functions for them.

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Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800
Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:

[...]

Second item: I have the impression that in the last month or so
there have been a handful of postings from James Kuyper, in each
case intended as a direct response to a posting of mine, but not
threaded as a followup posting in the usual newsgroup way. Do
other people also see this? Or more directly, is there someone
who can offer an independent verification of such postings? If
it is happening, does anyone have an idea what might be causing
it?

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me>. And
it is an example of an incorrectly threaded message : his
quotations show that it is meant as a direct response to you but
the last item in References: is <uje6vv$gei$1@dont-email.me>
which is another post by James.

Thank you. I haven't yet seen this so I didn't know about it.

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Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800, Tim Rentsch wrote:

Recently there seems to be a lot of postings mostly about issues in
other languages (C++, Java, Python, or some others mentioned in passing)
but having little or nothing to do with C.

From <https://clc-wiki.net/wiki/C_community:comp.lang.c:Introduction>:
[...]

(A) It's a wiki.

(B) It's not any sort of official statement about the newsgroup.

(C) There is almost no overlap between people mentioned on pages
in the wiki and recently active posters.

(D) The site is way out of date. It looks like most of it was
written at least 10 years ago, and the page you referenced
was written 20 years ago.

(E) Topicality is not binary. 99% topical is a lot different
than 1% topical.

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Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

Hear hear. Discussions about C++ in particular happen repeatedly ,
it's not just a recent occurrence.

IIRC, many of these come from google groups people.

There was a post here a while ago that stated Google made a
change that considered news groups with a '++' invalid.
So, many posts for comp.lang.c++ started ending up here. I
forgot the actual reason.

Anyway, soon google group posts will be an non-issue :)

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Anthony Cuozzo <anthony@cuozzo.us> writes:

[..what is topical in comp.lang.c?..]

I think it would make sense to expand the official scope of the
newsgroup to any topic related to C, even funky half-baked K&R-era implementations on long-dead architectures.

I don't see why a question on, e.g., x86-64 SIMD instructions
would need to be off-topic here if the OP is using a C compiler
with builtin functions for them.

Topicality is not binary. No matter where the boundary is drawn,
there will be postings that fall somewhere outside of it. And
that's okay.

That said, some issues are pretty close to the main body, and
some are clearly outside. It isn't just if, but how often, how
much, and how long. Some off-topic threads go on at great length
for dozens of postings or more. If someone has a short question
about compiler-specific intrinsics, that should be okay. On the
other hand, there are a few bad actors who will use any excuse
to go farther and farther into left field, to the point where any
connection to most people who visit the group has long since
disappeared. (Even worse are the offenders who will talk about
anything that interests them but chastise others for topic they
aren't interested in. No names but I think most people know who
all fall into this category.)

In short, I don't mind a fuzzy boundary, with the primary focus
of the newsgroup being standard C, and with a normal distribution
fall-off as the subjects get farther from the center. (And of
course I know that there are people who will continue to talk
about whatever it is they want to talk about, regardless of how
much or how little it has to do with C. Nothing is ever going to
stop them but it's good to call them out every so often.)

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On 1/28/24 16:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800
Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:

...

Second item: I have the impression that in the last month or so
there have been a handful of postings from James Kuyper, in each
case intended as a direct response to a posting of mine, but not
threaded as a followup posting in the usual newsgroup way. Do
other people also see this? Or more directly, is there someone
who can offer an independent verification of such postings? If
it is happening, does anyone have an idea what might be causing
it?

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me> .And it is
an example of an incorrectly threaded message : his quotations show that
it is meant as a direct response to you but the last item in
References: is <uje6vv$gei$1@dont-email.me> which is another post by James.

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,
and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what to do with
them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using Google Groups)
Firefox or Chrome.

For Tim's benefit, the explanation he's referring to is at the beginning
of what is (currently) the very last message on the "Call to a function" thread, posted by me with a Date: header of Tue, 23 Jan 2024 14:19:09 -0500.

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On 1/30/2024 12:19 AM, Keith Thompson wrote:

James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:

On 1/28/24 16:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

[...]

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me> .And it is
an example of an incorrectly threaded message : his quotations show that >>> it is meant as a direct response to you but the last item in
References: is <uje6vv$gei$1@dont-email.me> which is another post by
James.

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,
and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what to do with
them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using Google Groups)
Firefox or Chrome.

Those are Message-IDs, not links.

For example, your article to which I'm replying has this header line:

Message-ID: <up9ve1$roj9$1@dont-email.me>

There isn't necessarily a good way to look up an article given its Message-ID. The newsreader I use, Gnus, has a 'j' command (gnus-summary-goto-article) that takes either an article number (a
sequential number within a newsgroup, specific to a given NNTP server)
or a Message-ID (should be unique across all of Usenet) as an argument.

I don't know whether Thunderbird has a similar feature.

There's a package called "sinntp", a "tiny non-interactive NNTP client",
that includes a command "nttp-get" that can fetch an article given its Message-ID (if you specify the server and authentication information).

[...]

http://al.howardknight.net/

<up9ve1$roj9$1@dont-email.me> <=== include the angle-brackets around the MID

Returns:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cup9ve1%24roj9%241%40dont-email.me%3E

The web pages, if they contain messages with BASE64 body text,
that is not decoded. So the method is not perfect, but it
does allow activity like walking threads backwards.

Message bodies are length-truncated. Some people were abusing
the server and using it to serve movies (a thousand messages
with long body text), and by deleting most of the body text,
they stopped using it for movies. This means if you posted
a long C source, this site as an archive would not offer all
of the message.

And that can help with clients that don't have MID: access.
You can use the headers section.

That server may have local retention, but it also searches
other places, so the retention is partially a function of
things that could go away.

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On 2024-01-30, James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,
and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what to do with
them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using Google Groups)
Firefox or Chrome.

You have to find the feature in your NNTP client which retrieves a
Usenet article by Message-ID, and paste that into its UI, possibly after manually removing the delimiting angle brackets.

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca

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On 30/01/2024 05:54, James Kuyper wrote:

On 1/28/24 16:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800
Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:

...

Second item: I have the impression that in the last month or so
there have been a handful of postings from James Kuyper, in each
case intended as a direct response to a posting of mine, but not
threaded as a followup posting in the usual newsgroup way. Do
other people also see this? Or more directly, is there someone
who can offer an independent verification of such postings? If
it is happening, does anyone have an idea what might be causing
it?

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me> .And it is
an example of an incorrectly threaded message : his quotations show that
it is meant as a direct response to you but the last item in
References: is <uje6vv$gei$1@dont-email.me> which is another post by
James.

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,
and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what to do with
them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using Google Groups)
Firefox or Chrome.

I don't know of a good way to use these ID's in Thunderbird.

Giving the date and thread title is usually sufficient and should be
useable on any newsreader (including GG - which as far as I know still
shows old posts). It is also helpful to know how long ago the post was!

For Tim's benefit, the explanation he's referring to is at the beginning
of what is (currently) the very last message on the "Call to a function" thread, posted by me with a Date: header of Tue, 23 Jan 2024 14:19:09 -0500.

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On 1/30/24 05:54, James Kuyper wrote:

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me> .And it is

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,

Use http://al.howardknight.net/
--> http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=170660961100


--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| https://tube.interhacker.space/a/tth/video-channels | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

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On Mon, 29 Jan 2024 21:49:59 -0000 (UTC)
John McCue <jmccue@qball.jmcunx.com> wrote:

Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

Hear hear. Discussions about C++ in particular happen repeatedly ,
it's not just a recent occurrence.

IIRC, many of these come from google groups people.

There was a post here a while ago that stated Google made a
change that considered news groups with a '++' invalid.
So, many posts for comp.lang.c++ started ending up here. I
forgot the actual reason.

That was a bug rather than intentional change. It was fixed relatively
quickly.

Anyway, soon google group posts will be an non-issue :)

In this particular groups Google Groups posts are non-issue since
2023-10-28. I.e. more than a full quarter.

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On 2024-01-30, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

On 2024-01-30, James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto:// links,
and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what to do with
them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using Google Groups)
Firefox or Chrome.

You have to find the feature in your NNTP client which retrieves a
Usenet article by Message-ID, and paste that into its UI, possibly after
manually removing the delimiting angle brackets.

The angle brackets are actually part of the Message-ID. (Some software
might let them be omitted.)

If true, that is surprising; but it doesn't sound right. The angle brackets are just a delimiter used when the ID appears in headers, similarly to brackets around e-mail addresses.

Indeed, RFC 2392:

Notes: In Internet mail messages, the addr-spec in a Content-ID
[MIME] or Message-ID [822] header is enclosed in angle brackets
(<>). [Section 2. The MID and CID Url Schemes]

Elsewhere in the document, the grammar doesn't mention the angle
brackets.

An NNTP client should definitely accept a Message ID without the angle brackets. To be user-friendly, it should strip them if they are present.
This is similar to accepting e-mail addresses with or without
angle brackets. you can compose a message to foo@example.com or
to Foo Bar <foo@example.com>, and the latter should be accepted
even without the display name.

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca

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On 2024-01-30, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:
the space before the '<' is also part of the msg-id. I don't know
whether that was intended, but I don't think it's relevant to the
current discussion.

In the same RFC:

Semantically, the angle bracket characters are not part of the
msg-id; the msg-id is what is contained between the two angle bracket
characters. [3.6.4. Identification fields]

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca

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On 1/30/24 4:44 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

On 2024-01-30, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:
the space before the '<' is also part of the msg-id. I don't know
whether that was intended, but I don't think it's relevant to the
current discussion.

In the same RFC:

Semantically, the angle bracket characters are not part of the
msg-id; the msg-id is what is contained between the two angle bracket
characters. [3.6.4. Identification fields]

Interesting, I missed that. (And I'm disappointed that the text
contradicts the grammar.)

Its just a simplification to avoid needing another term in the grammer.

message-id is defined like most top level header definitions, of just
the name of the field, and then a name for the payload.

Thus, the term for the payload needs to define the "optional" parts
([CFWS]), the formatting syntax, ("<", ">") and the semantic pieces.

If msg-id was just defined as 'id-left "@" id-right' to be the actual definition of a message-id, we would need a middle term something like:

mssage-id = "Message-ID:" msg-id-field CRLF

msg-id-field = [CFWS] "<" msg-id ">" [CFWS]

msg-id = id-left "@: id-right


The Grammer, by its nature defines the grammer, not the semantics.

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On 2024-02-03, Richard Damon <richard@damon-family.org> wrote:

On 1/30/24 4:44 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

On 2024-01-30, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:
the space before the '<' is also part of the msg-id. I don't know
whether that was intended, but I don't think it's relevant to the
current discussion.

In the same RFC:

Semantically, the angle bracket characters are not part of the
msg-id; the msg-id is what is contained between the two angle bracket >>> characters. [3.6.4. Identification fields]

Interesting, I missed that. (And I'm disappointed that the text
contradicts the grammar.)

Its just a simplification to avoid needing another term in the grammer.

No, it isn't, because the msg-id child phrase is used only in
on parent, the message-id phrase. The angle bracket and [CWFS]
parts can be freely moved from one to the other without introducing
an unnecessary intermediate rule, like you have done:

mssage-id = "Message-ID:" msg-id-field CRLF

msg-id-field = [CFWS] "<" msg-id ">" [CFWS]

msg-id = id-left "@: id-right

I.e.:

message-id = "Message-ID:" [CFWS] "<" msg-id ">" [CWFS]

msg-id = id-left "@" id-right

However, this is not the right solution. The right solution is:

message-id-header = "Message-ID:" [CWFS] msg-id-literal [CWFS]

msg-id-literal = "<" id-left "@" id-right ">"

and then in the text:

Semantically, the angle bracket characters of the msg-id-literal
are not part of the message ID denoted by that literal.

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca

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James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:

On 1/28/24 16:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 12:13:47 -0800
Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:

...

Second item: I have the impression that in the last month or so
there have been a handful of postings from James Kuyper, in each
case intended as a direct response to a posting of mine, but not
threaded as a followup posting in the usual newsgroup way. Do
other people also see this? Or more directly, is there someone
who can offer an independent verification of such postings? If
it is happening, does anyone have an idea what might be causing
it?

James himself explains it in <uop3fd$1d8ao$1@dont-email.me> .And it
is an example of an incorrectly threaded message : his quotations
show that it is meant as a direct response to you but the last item
in References: is <uje6vv$gei$1@dont-email.me> which is another
post by James.

Those links don't work for me. They are interpreted as mailto://
links, and the link itself says not to mail them. I don't know what
to do with them, and neither do Thunderbird or (when I'm using
Google Groups) Firefox or Chrome.

For Tim's benefit, the explanation he's referring to is at the
beginning of what is (currently) the very last message on the "Call
to a function" thread, posted by me with a Date: header of Tue, 23
Jan 2024 14:19:09 -0500.

Thank you. That message is in my input queue but I haven't
yet gotten to it.

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