Com S 227 --- Introduction to Computer Programming August 9, 1993 HOW TO READ OUR NEWSGROUP To allow for informal electronic discussion among students and staff in Com S 227 we have set up a ``usenet newsgroup'' for Com S 227. The kinds of discussions that you are likely to see are as follows: * announcements from the staff that are not significant enough for giving in lectures or urgent enough for electronic mail * discussions about the course material such as: - answers to common questions - additional examples - discussions about topics related to the course * suggestions or questions about how the course is run. You should NOT post answers to homeworks, or even hints that give answers away. Remember that the course staff is reading the group too. If you have a question about the course material, you might be better served by talking to a member of the staff or sending us mail, as we will not consider anything in the newsgroup urgent. We will sometimes post answers to questions that you ask us if we think that others will benefit from the answers, but if the question is important enough, we will also tell the class in some other way. So you don't have to do any of the following unless you'd like to see this kind of discussion. (That is, you can stop reading now if you want.) Our newsgroup is called ``isu.coms.227'' (without the quotes). We describe one way to read and post news messages below. (If you have already been reading news, subscribe to ``isu.coms.227'' and ignore the rest of this handout.) 1. SETTING UP There are literally thousands of newsgroups that one can read. To be sure that you are not hassled by details outside of this class, do the following. Create a file ``~/.newsrc'' and put in it the following line, starting in column 1 isu.coms.227: 1-1 Be sure to put a newline in the file at the end. At the Vincent prompt, execute the following command: mkdir ~/.nn This makes a directory that the nn program, which you'll use below looks in for an initialization file. Create a file ``~/.nn/init'' and put in it the following line, also starting in column 1 set new-group-action 0 Be sure to put a newline in the file at the end. This tells nn to ignore all groups besides those you are already subscribed to, which at this point is just ``isu.coms.227''. 2. READING NEWS To start reading news, at the Vincent prompt execute the command nn Your screen will then look something like the text between the lines of equal signs (``='') that follow: ============================================================================= Newsgroup: isu.coms.227 Articles: 2 of 2/1 a Harry Gnu 59 Another Scheme (free/cheap) that runs on PCs etc. b System Supporter 10 get the message on paper when you can't run Scheme -- 17:13 -- SELECT -- help:? -----All----- ============================================================================== You see the name of the newsgroup, ``isu.coms.227'' at the top. The two lines in the middle (in this example) are short descriptions of news articles. In this screen you get to select which, if any, you wand to read. (That's what the bottom line is telling you.) You select an article by typing its letter; these letters are at the far left of the summary lines. For example, to select the first article, type the character ``a'' (without the quotes) and the first summary line will be highlighted to tell you that you have selected it. When you are done making selections, type a space character (hit the space bar). In nn typing space means to ``do it'' in this case read your selections. If you have made no selections, the program will quit. You can unselect a selected article by typing its letter again. Type ``?'' (without the quotes) for help. If you have selected articles, you'll see them in order, starting with the first alphabetically. You will only see one screenful, to see more, type a space. You can save the article in a file by typing a ``s'' character (without typing the quotes). If you execute nn and there is no news, nn will give you a short message and tell you that ``No News (is good news)'' meaning that you have read all the news so far. If you want to see the news again, execute the command nn -g and at the prompt ``Enter Group or Folder'' type ``isu.coms.227'' (without the quotes) and then hit return. You will then see a prompt ``Number of Articles''; at this prompt enter the character ``a'' (without the quotes) to see all the articles in a menu. Select the ones you want to read as before. 3. POSTING ARTICLES There are two ways to post an article. To make a brand new article, get to the point of selecting or reading an article (if necessary by using ``nn -g'' as above), and then enter the characters :post followed by a return. At the prompt ``POST to group'' enter isu.coms.227 and a return. You will be prompted for a subject (your article title), keywords (important nouns that describe your subject), a summary (the one line description that others see), and distribution (use isu). Enter each of these followed by a return. You will then see the word ``WAIT'' followed by the start of emacs (or whatever editor you use). Edit the body of your message, and make any corrections to the subject, keywords, and summary. Then exit from the editor, remembering to save your file. (Use C-x C-c in emacs and say that you want to save the file.) You will then see a list of actions (and abbreviations to their first letter) followed on the next line by a prompt for the action. The default is to post the article, so hit return to do that. (If you don't want to do it, use ``a'' (without the quotes) to cancel the post.) You'll see a note to be patient, which means wait more than a few minutes to see the article in the news. To follow up on another article that you are reading, type the character ``f'' (without the quotes) while you are reading the article. You will see a prompt ``Include original article?''. Reply with the character ``y'' (without the quotes) if you want to make your comments around the original by editing, or just to have it available during making up your own message. You will then see the ``WAIT'' message and have emacs start. Then proceed as above. It's best to only leave the relevant parts of the original message. Take out such things as the signature lines. 4. MOVING ON If you wish, you can have a signature file. Edit a file ``~/.signature'' with at most 3 lines of text. Usually this contains your addresses. To find out what else nn can do type ``?'' at the prompts, or read the manual pages by executing the command man nn at the Vincent prompt. If you have followed the directions so far, you're only reading news in our group. You might also want to read one or more of the following *if* they sound interesting. (On the other hand, you have to balance your interest with how much time it takes to read news.) isu.events isu.cc.general isu.market comp.lang.scheme comp.lang.functional The ``isu.*'' groups are local to ISU. The group ``comp.lang.scheme'' is international and sometimes highly technical. There are also many other groups. The way to try out a new group is to type a ``G'' when prompted by nn, you will then be asked for a group. You can type a ``?'' to see the possibilities. To subscribe (or unsubscribe), type ``U'' at the group's menu.