Sharing the editing task with Robbie made me acutely aware of
how mechanically tedious digest generation is.  Robbie and
I have split up the task of trying to improve the process.

I've written new software which automatically processes each
incoming message, saving only those portions of the header
that I want to output, putting the header out in a consistant
order, and deleting trailing blanks.  Each message gets put
in a seperate file.  Files are deleted from the directory when
the digest is generated.  Files not put in a given digest will
remain in a "pending queue" until they are either discarded
or output in a later digest.  Hopefully this will reduce the
number of "lost" articles, and make it easier for us to
trade editing duties back and forth.

A seperate program reads these files and generates the digest,
including adding the header with date and subjects, and the
trailer with boilerplate and date.  It also deletes duplicate
blank lines and expands tabs.

Robbie is writing a database lookup system so the correct "handles"
can be put on the subject lines in the index.  At some point soon
we will be sending a questionnaire to complete the information
in the database.

Later, we will work together to make a "web browser" front end
for all of this.  Ultimately that would allow other guest editors
to be recruited.  If nothing else, Robbie and I will learn a
little "Web" programming.

Jody