Rn (newsreader)
Encyclopedia
rn is a news client
(or 'newsreader') written by Larry Wall
and originally released in 1984. It was one of the first newsreaders to take full advantage of character-addressable CRT terminals (vnews, by Kenneth Almquist was first). Previous newsreaders, such as readnews, were mostly line-oriented and designed for use on the printing terminals which were common on the early Unix
minicomputers where the Usenet
software and network originated. Later variants of the original rn program included rrn, trn, and strn.
, "do the right thing", and automatic configuration. The KILL file was a file (called, obviously enough, KILL) containing regular expressions matched against the subjects of news articles in each group; if an article matched, it would be marked as having already been read. This feature proved essential as the growth of the Usenet made it impossible to read every article in even a limited selection of newsgroups.
"Do the right thing" was a fundamental change in the user-interface model of previous news software; rather than requiring users to navigate menus or learn a distinct command vocabulary for every operating mode of the program, certain single-keystroke commands were repeated throughout the user interface, performing the most obviously appropriate function for the task at hand. The most important of these commands was the space character, which means "go on to the next thing", where the next thing could be the next page, the next article, or the next newsgroup, depending on where the user was in the process of reading news.
Finally, automatic configuration was a feature for system administrators, not visible to users. Most Unix programs, and in particular all of the Usenet software, were distributed in source code
form. Because different vendors of Unix systems (and in many cases, different versions of the Unix software) implemented slightly different behavior and names for important functions, a system administrator was required to have sufficient programming expertise to edit the source code before building the program executables to account for these differences. A particularly considerate programmer might have centralized these in a single source code file, but it still required manual editing. rn changed that by including a script called Configure, which had enough intelligence on its own to examine the computer system it was running on and determine, of those functions and interfaces known to behave differently, which behavior the system implemented. Today, most open source
software is distributed with a similar script, such as autoconf
.
minicomputer
, which users connected to using terminals wired directly to the machine, and where the only networks available were accessed by slow and expensive dial-up modem connections. All of the articles in all of the newsgroups were stored in files on the local disk (known as the "news spool"), and rn could simply read those files directly when presenting them to the user. When local area network
s became widespread, it was natural that administrators and users would desire remote access to the news spool, and NNTP
, the Network News Transfer Protocol, was developed to serve that need. While working at Baylor College of Medicine
, Stan O. Barber developed remote rn (rrn), a set of patch
es to rn which allowed it to communicate with an NNTP server over a local-area (or even wide-area) network. Barber later took over maintenance responsibility for rn itself from Larry Wall.
As news volumes continued to increase, it became apparent that even KILL files could not possibly keep up with the sheer number of users and articles. A new concept, the threaded newsreader, was needed as users gradually switched from a "read most, kill few" model to "ignore most, read few". By organizing the articles in a newsgroup according to threads of discussion, using headers that had long been present in Usenet articles but practically unused, a threaded newsreader would allow users to keep up with topics and discussions they were interested without having to explicitly deselect uninteresting threads. Kim F. Storm's nn
newsreader was the first to implement this new model, and it looked for a while as if nn would do to rn what rn did to readnews. This fate was averted when Wayne Davison
developed trn, a set of patches to rn which gave it both threading at the article level and a new user-interface that would allow users to select only the threads they desired, while remaining true to the original rn interface philosophy of do the right thing.
An even more recent addition to the rn family has been the addition of scoring, which allows a more complex method of evaluating articles to determine whether the user wishes to read them; originally this was implemented in a code fork of trn called strn, but later this was integrated into the official trn distribution.
News client
A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet . Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol , to download articles and post new articles...
(or 'newsreader') written by Larry Wall
Larry Wall
Larry Wall is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.-Education:Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976....
and originally released in 1984. It was one of the first newsreaders to take full advantage of character-addressable CRT terminals (vnews, by Kenneth Almquist was first). Previous newsreaders, such as readnews, were mostly line-oriented and designed for use on the printing terminals which were common on the early Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
minicomputers where the Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
software and network originated. Later variants of the original rn program included rrn, trn, and strn.
Features
rn was also notable for three other features it introduced: KILL filesKill file
A kill file is a per-user file used by some Usenet reading programs to discard summarily articles matching some unwanted patterns of subject, author, or other header lines.Thus to add a person to one's kill file is to arrange for that person to be ignored...
, "do the right thing", and automatic configuration. The KILL file was a file (called, obviously enough, KILL) containing regular expressions matched against the subjects of news articles in each group; if an article matched, it would be marked as having already been read. This feature proved essential as the growth of the Usenet made it impossible to read every article in even a limited selection of newsgroups.
"Do the right thing" was a fundamental change in the user-interface model of previous news software; rather than requiring users to navigate menus or learn a distinct command vocabulary for every operating mode of the program, certain single-keystroke commands were repeated throughout the user interface, performing the most obviously appropriate function for the task at hand. The most important of these commands was the space character, which means "go on to the next thing", where the next thing could be the next page, the next article, or the next newsgroup, depending on where the user was in the process of reading news.
Finally, automatic configuration was a feature for system administrators, not visible to users. Most Unix programs, and in particular all of the Usenet software, were distributed in source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
form. Because different vendors of Unix systems (and in many cases, different versions of the Unix software) implemented slightly different behavior and names for important functions, a system administrator was required to have sufficient programming expertise to edit the source code before building the program executables to account for these differences. A particularly considerate programmer might have centralized these in a single source code file, but it still required manual editing. rn changed that by including a script called Configure, which had enough intelligence on its own to examine the computer system it was running on and determine, of those functions and interfaces known to behave differently, which behavior the system implemented. Today, most open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software is distributed with a similar script, such as autoconf
Autoconf
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available....
.
History
Like all of the original newsreaders and the Usenet software itself, rn was designed for the environment of a large time-sharedTime-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
, which users connected to using terminals wired directly to the machine, and where the only networks available were accessed by slow and expensive dial-up modem connections. All of the articles in all of the newsgroups were stored in files on the local disk (known as the "news spool"), and rn could simply read those files directly when presenting them to the user. When local area network
Local area network
A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
s became widespread, it was natural that administrators and users would desire remote access to the news spool, and NNTP
Network News Transfer Protocol
The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications...
, the Network News Transfer Protocol, was developed to serve that need. While working at Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
, Stan O. Barber developed remote rn (rrn), a set of patch
Patch (Unix)
patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. The patch file is a text file that consists of a list of differences and is produced by running the related diff program with the original and updated file as arguments...
es to rn which allowed it to communicate with an NNTP server over a local-area (or even wide-area) network. Barber later took over maintenance responsibility for rn itself from Larry Wall.
As news volumes continued to increase, it became apparent that even KILL files could not possibly keep up with the sheer number of users and articles. A new concept, the threaded newsreader, was needed as users gradually switched from a "read most, kill few" model to "ignore most, read few". By organizing the articles in a newsgroup according to threads of discussion, using headers that had long been present in Usenet articles but practically unused, a threaded newsreader would allow users to keep up with topics and discussions they were interested without having to explicitly deselect uninteresting threads. Kim F. Storm's nn
Nn (newsreader)
nn is a Unix-based news client, which is a client software program for accessing Usenet servers.nn was originally written in 1984 by Kim F. Storm to provide an alternative more user-friendly way to access Usenet than the existing newsreaders. nn is currently at version 6.7.3, and is now...
newsreader was the first to implement this new model, and it looked for a while as if nn would do to rn what rn did to readnews. This fate was averted when Wayne Davison
Wayne Davison
Wayne Davison is a noted programmer and musician, born on 14 December in the US state of California.Davison's first well-known project was trn, a Usenet newsreader based on Larry Wall's rn....
developed trn, a set of patches to rn which gave it both threading at the article level and a new user-interface that would allow users to select only the threads they desired, while remaining true to the original rn interface philosophy of do the right thing.
An even more recent addition to the rn family has been the addition of scoring, which allows a more complex method of evaluating articles to determine whether the user wishes to read them; originally this was implemented in a code fork of trn called strn, but later this was integrated into the official trn distribution.
External links
- [news:news.software.readers news.software.readers newsgroup]
- trn fan site, with screenshots