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Usenet is low key and mainly for file distribution nowadays but it still has its niche. I do like to try implementing the protocol for making servers whenever

Usenet is low key and mainly for file distribution nowadays but it still has its niche. I do like to try implementing the protocol for making servers whenever I'm trying to learn a new language, it's my Hello World. I've never produced anything that works to any significant extent because unlike HTTP there aren't a huge number of implementations to learn from and the protocol is a bit vague in parts. It's an arcane topic and not many people to ask.

zxcvbn4038 6y ago
Oh yes, the wonders of downloading binaries from Usenet. I always wondered if people left out a part on purpose, it seemed suspicious to me that out of n dozen pieces of a file that arrived, one piece consistently would not. About as bad as the people who seed a file except for the last block.
- caf 6y ago
  Surely it's more evil to seed a file except for the first block?
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  This is part of the reason .par files are popular - as long as you can access a fixed number of par files, you can recreate the source file.
dirkt 6y ago
> Usenet is low key and mainly for file distribution nowadays but it still has its niche. I always find it funny that people think of Usenet "mainly for file distribution" (though that happened), when I used it exclusively for discussion... long before the News servers had the capacity to deal with all those alt.binaries.* groups.