* Re: Terseness @ 1994-12-14 1:41 tmoran 0 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 1994-12-14 1:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Today's 20 Team Ada e-mail messages totalled 1313 lines, 468 of which were neither quote nor header. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <199412031821.LAA27900@hops.entertain.com>]
* Re: Robert Dewar's horrible posts [not found] <199412031821.LAA27900@hops.entertain.com> @ 1994-12-04 4:25 ` David Weller 1994-12-04 5:43 ` Dave Retherford 0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: David Weller @ 1994-12-04 4:25 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <199412031821.LAA27900@hops.entertain.com>, Colin James III <cjames@HOPS.ENTERTAIN.COM> wrote: >off by the gross behavior of him and his cronies. Put another way, the mode >and content of Robert's posts reflect one who doesn't have too much to do, >and hence waste everyone's time. Yeah. Writing the first compiler for Ada94/5 was a real waste of time. Sheesh, stop being such an asshole, Colin. -- Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2) ||This is not your Ada -- Very Cool. Doesn't Suck. || father's Ada For all sorts of interesting Ada tidbits, run the command: ||________________ "finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.) |"Quitting C++ isn't so difficult, provided you show as much | | persistence stopping as you did starting." dweller | ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Robert Dewar's horrible posts 1994-12-04 4:25 ` Robert Dewar's horrible posts David Weller @ 1994-12-04 5:43 ` Dave Retherford 1994-12-08 18:14 ` -mlc-+Schilling J. 0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: Dave Retherford @ 1994-12-04 5:43 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3brgav$gu5@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>, David Weller <dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> wrote: > In article <199412031821.LAA27900@hops.entertain.com>, > Colin James III <cjames@HOPS.ENTERTAIN.COM> wrote: > >off by the gross behavior of him and his cronies. Put another way, the mode > >and content of Robert's posts reflect one who doesn't have too much to do, > >and hence waste everyone's time. > > Yeah. Writing the first compiler for Ada94/5 was a real waste of > time. > > Sheesh, stop being such an asshole, Colin. > > -- Now, now Dave, remember Colin suffers from an acute case of cranial edema with a complicating factor of cranial rectumitus. -- Dave Retherford | Daver@Neosoft.com or: | Dave_Retherford@hso.link.com [work] | ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Robert Dewar's horrible posts 1994-12-04 5:43 ` Dave Retherford @ 1994-12-08 18:14 ` -mlc-+Schilling J. 1994-12-09 16:52 ` Terseness John Volan 0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: -mlc-+Schilling J. @ 1994-12-08 18:14 UTC (permalink / raw) I like the fact that Robert Dewar's posts are succinct and never quote preceding posts. Even if this is forced upon him by his news software, it's a blessed relief from the screenfulls of cascades you see all over the rest of Usenet. -- Jonathan Schilling Novell, UNIX Systems Group jls@summit.novell.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Terseness 1994-12-08 18:14 ` -mlc-+Schilling J. @ 1994-12-09 16:52 ` John Volan 1994-12-12 4:39 ` Terseness Robert Dewar 1994-12-14 17:46 ` Terseness -mlc-+Schilling J. 0 siblings, 2 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: John Volan @ 1994-12-09 16:52 UTC (permalink / raw) While I highly respect Robert Dewar, I disagree with Jonathan Schilling. (Nice and terse, right? Gets right to the point, doesn't it? But ... what in the world am I referring to? Hit a space now if you want to find out. ;-) \f jls@summit.novell.com (-mlc-+Schilling J.) writes: >I like the fact that Robert Dewar's posts are succinct and never quote >preceding posts. Even if this is forced upon him by his news software, >it's a blessed relief from the screenfulls of cascades you see all over >the rest of Usenet. I have to disagree with you here, Jonathan. When someone responds to a previous post, sometimes the response is hard to understand unless it happens to immediately follow the original, or unless it quotes at least part of the original. My news software seems to sort posts by time of arrival, not time of sending, and I frequently see a response *after* the original post. Depending on the transmission lags involved, the original may occasionally appear *days* after the response! Even if the posts do arrive in sending order, there may be a gap of several days between the original and the response, and I may have forgotten what the original post said. Or, if I let a few days go by without reading the news, the original may already be long gone and I may never see it at all! I feel that a reasonable amount of quoting is a polite courtesy that aids the reader's understanding. Of course, like anything, this can get out of hand if you take it to an extreme, but the opposite extreme of not quoting at all is, IMHO, just as bad. In Robert Dewar's case ... well, he's a very busy man, and the work he's doing is of such importance to the future of Ada, that I think we can all forgive him this slight indiscretion. :-) Frankly, I'm grateful that he can take the time to post to c.l.a at all! John Volan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Me : Person := (Name => "John Volan", -- Company => "Raytheon Missile Systems Division", -- E_Mail_Address => "jgv@swl.msd.ray.com", -- Affiliation => "Enthusiastic member of Team Ada!", -- Humorous_Disclaimer => "These opinions are undefined " & -- "by my employer and therefore " & -- "any use of them would be " & -- "totally erroneous."); -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Terseness 1994-12-09 16:52 ` Terseness John Volan @ 1994-12-12 4:39 ` Robert Dewar 1994-12-12 17:07 ` Terseness John Volan 1994-12-14 17:46 ` Terseness -mlc-+Schilling J. 1 sibling, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-12-12 4:39 UTC (permalink / raw) John (Volan), I trust you use a news reader that follows threads, if not it is VERY hard to follow and respond to news coherently. In particular, the example message you just gave indeed had no context, because you started a brand new thread. It is true that if you follow messages blindly in sequence, then you might even get to like these horrible quotes. So, John, just for interest, do you follow threads, or do you read messages sequentially (I bet the latter!) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Terseness 1994-12-12 4:39 ` Terseness Robert Dewar @ 1994-12-12 17:07 ` John Volan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: John Volan @ 1994-12-12 17:07 UTC (permalink / raw) dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: >John (Volan), I trust you use a news reader that follows threads, if not >it is VERY hard to follow and respond to news coherently. [snip] >So, John, just for interest, do you follow threads, or do you read messages >sequentially (I bet the latter!) Sorry, you lost that bet! ;-) Yes, my newsreader does follow threads [*um, see footnote below]. This does help by at least placing a post in the context of its thread, but sometimes this isn't enough context to avoid confusion. *Within* a given thread, I find that posts do not necessarily appear in the order they were sent (presumably because of geographical differences in transmission lag). I suppose a smart newsreader could sort posts by sending-order, as well as by thread, but I don't think this would solve every problem. What if you see a response on Tuesday, read it (thus "eliminating" it from the thread), and then finally get the original post on Thursday? Even if posts do arrive in sending-order, what if there's a significant time gap? Let's say Mr. Alpha posts something on Tuesday. Ms. Beta reads it on Wednesday, thinks up an interesting response on Thursday, mulls on it overnight, and posts it on Friday. By the time poor Mr. Gamma sees Ms. Beta's response on Monday, his memory of Mr. Alpha's original post has gotten a little foggy. In the meanwhile, the thread has spawned a lively discussion between Messrs. Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta, who each fired off several posts on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. By the time poor Mr. Gamma wades through these to get to Ms. Beta's post, the context of Mr. Alpha's original post may have completely dissipated, unless Ms. Beta has been kind enough to quote from it. When Ms. Eta finally logs into the newsgroup a week or so later (after her newsreader has already flushed Mr. Alpha's post) she may see several simultaneous, intertwined discussions all under the same subject (Mr. Theta and Ms. Iota having thrown in some tangential issues), and there may be no clue as to what anybody is talking about, other than what can be gleaned from quotes. >It is true that if you follow messages blindly >in sequence, then you might even get to like these horrible quotes. ^^^^^^^^ Well, I'm certainly not an advocate of "horrible" quotes that go to tremendous extremes. I believe it's incumbent on a responder to be judicious and selective in how much of the original to quote, and how best to break up a long quote to respond to it point for point. Anyone who just quotes a long post in its entirety without doing a little editing is simply being lazy, in my book. And if the quoted post *itself* contains a huge quote ... well, that kind of cascading is an abuse, pure and simple. But just because quoting can be abused doesn't necessarily mean that *all* quoting is absolutely bad, IMHO. Like anything, it has to be approached thoughtfully. >In particular, >the example message you just gave indeed had no context, because you >started a brand new thread. Er, if you recall, the original subject line used to be "Robert Dewar's horrible posts". I refuse to promote the rather bizarre agenda of the person who started *that* thread, even to the extent of having my posts carry such a subject line (or even by referring to it with a "[was: ... ]" annotation). I wanted my comments to be viewed in a much milder and more constructive light, so I thought it wise to start a whole new thread. -- John Volan [*] P.S. In the above discussion, I'm assuming that the term "thread" is synonymous with "subject", but maybe I'm still naive about Internet lingo. Are there newsreaders smart enough to "follow the references," thereby distinguishing separate "threads" even within the same "subject"? (In which case, why don't we make that bet best two out of three? ;-) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Me : Person := (Name => "John Volan", -- Company => "Raytheon Missile Systems Division", -- E_Mail_Address => "jgv@swl.msd.ray.com", -- Affiliation => "Enthusiastic member of Team Ada!", -- Humorous_Disclaimer => "These opinions are undefined " & -- "by my employer and therefore " & -- "any use of them would be " & -- "totally erroneous."); -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Terseness 1994-12-09 16:52 ` Terseness John Volan 1994-12-12 4:39 ` Terseness Robert Dewar @ 1994-12-14 17:46 ` -mlc-+Schilling J. 1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: -mlc-+Schilling J. @ 1994-12-14 17:46 UTC (permalink / raw) John Volan raises some valid points about the unorderedness of news readers, but I still think it is possible to write a succinct follow-up without quoting. ;-) -- Jonathan Schilling Novell, UNIX Systems Group jls@summit.novell.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1994-12-14 17:46 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 5+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 1994-12-14 1:41 Terseness tmoran [not found] <199412031821.LAA27900@hops.entertain.com> 1994-12-04 4:25 ` Robert Dewar's horrible posts David Weller 1994-12-04 5:43 ` Dave Retherford 1994-12-08 18:14 ` -mlc-+Schilling J. 1994-12-09 16:52 ` Terseness John Volan 1994-12-12 4:39 ` Terseness Robert Dewar 1994-12-12 17:07 ` Terseness John Volan 1994-12-14 17:46 ` Terseness -mlc-+Schilling J.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox