Re: All languages are equally fit

On Dec 16, 9:23 pm, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 15, 11:45 pm, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:10:46 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

I can't repeat it often enough: Google is NOT Usenet, just as the WWW
is NOT the internet.

So does everyone who does not use google groups see these (now) four
postings as the 1002nd through 1005th items in the main thread?

They aren't counted in Usenet per se, all messages are separate
entities but have references to earlier messages.

There is no central computer to assing world wide serial
numbers. Each of the many thousands of Usenet servers
might receive messages in different order than other servers.

If there are any serial numbers assigned, they are local
affairs between each server and agents connected to it.
These are usually assigned in ascending order per each
user group and serve the purpose of finding quickly what
posts each agent has not yet received.

The serial numbers assigned to each thread is a Google
invention with its own unique plethora of bugs.
pjk

I can view a thread in two ways, either "sort by date" (which uses the
timestamp in the message), and here the serial numbers, from 1 to
1000,

Remember that these serial numbers are assigned by Google
when they receive the messages in their database, they are
not seen by non-Google group users and they have no meaning
outside the Google group environment.

don't change (unless a message got delayed somewhere, I suppose);
or "sort by reply" (which puts each message directly under
the one it replies to;

A reply cannot be always *directly* under the post it replies to.
Quite often you have more than one replies to a particular post.
You need two dimensions to represent such structure.

Obviously, the replies to the first reply go directly under that one,
etc., so we have a nice series of indents (two dimensions). The
structure is alweays clear.

There are many agents available that can display message IDs
connected by lines not unlike the Window Explorer displays
the hierarchical structure of directories with files and directories
within them.

the serial numbers change as replies to earlier
branches appear). I use the latter way except when there are hundreds
of messages and replies might be anywhere in the thread. (I can see 26
author-lines of messages at once, the rest of the screen being taken
up by IE headers and such). Either way, messages I haven't looked at
are in bold. When I click on an author-name, a group of ten messages
(from xx1 to xx0) comes into view,

that's what leads to unncessary retransmisson of a lot of
already received data and slows you down.

I prefer using agents that receive all new messages only once
(by that I mean messages I've never ever received before)
and does it in the background as soon as I log on.
By the time I start browsing hierarchies of the posts, be it
sequentially or randomly, the agent reads all messages off my
hard disk which is lightningly fast. I can ask to redisplay the

There are no messages on my hard disk (except on the rare occasions
when I Save one).

hierarchy in many different sorting orders and it gets done and
displayed in milliseconds. I am well familiar with Google groups
and I know that doing that in Google is just one big pain in the
arse.

As I said, there are two displays, and switching between them takes
only a moment.

and I can't start typing a reply
and then go to look at a message not within that decade (I have to
send the reply, or it will be deleted unsent).

That is all a consequence the Google 'agent' not being
resident on your machine. No posts are filed away on your
machine and you have only a very narrow window (10 wide
in your case) through which you view messages in the
Google's database. Whenever you ask for the next lot or
a different sorting order the whole bundle is resend again
regardless whether you had it on your machine already or
not.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: All languages are equally fit
    ... Remember that these serial numbers are assigned by Google ... A reply cannot be always *directly* under the post it replies to. ... There are many agents available that can display message IDs ... By the time I start browsing hierarchies of the posts, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: All languages are equally fit
    ... Remember that these serial numbers are assigned by Google ... A reply cannot be always *directly* under the post it replies to. ... There are many agents available that can display message IDs ... By the time I start browsing hierarchies of the posts, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: All languages are equally fit
    ... The silly 1000 postings limitation is imposed by Google, not by Usenet ... It indeed depends on what kind of agent one uses. ... When you display the threaded tree structure of the posts then the ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: If Republicans Speak for the Rich and Democrats Speak for the Poor, Who Speaks for the Middle Cl
    ... Google is so easy to use and it's>easy to ... >Agent, I have crap spread out all over the screen, and I can't>get it ... >to list the posts in the simply, ... Every other newsreader that I've looked at sort them ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: [kook] [Update] Re: [SLRN] Scoring Common Names -Correction
    ... of the replies to those google group posts may be useful. ... Kill on the last entry in the References header ...
    (news.software.readers)