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Re: Question on compiling on linux

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  Re: Question on compiling on linux Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-06-27 20:01 -0400
    Re: Question on compiling on linux Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-28 12:28 +1000
      Re: Question on compiling on linux Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-28 13:23 +1000
      Re: Question on compiling on linux Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2016-06-27 21:39 -0600

#110619 — Re: Question on compiling on linux

On Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:56:58 -0400, Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>
declaimed the following:

>On Mon, Jun 27, 2016, at 00:26, Zachary Ware wrote:
>> A: Because you have to read things in reverse order.
>> Q: Why?
>> A: Top-posting.
>> Q: What's one of the most annoying common email practices?
>
>Which is witty, but doesn't *actually* explain why it's bad.
>
>1. The intent, as I understand it, with top-posting is that the reply
>message stands on its own, and the quoted message is just "attached" in
>case someone needs to refer back to it, rather than representing a
>conversational flow as the Q/A format does.
>
	Which is a practice I only saw become popular with M$ Outlook -- which
in many versions makes it nearly impossible to do trim&intersperse
responses.

>2. Most email clients sort messages or threads by date with the most
>recent (or most recently updated) at the top, so there's no generalized
>principle at work against having later things appear above earlier
>things.

	Most email clients also allow one to specify the sort order -- even
Outlook can be told to put oldest at top... 

	The Outlook style works well in a business environment where the
recipient is likely the original sender of the quoted text, and doesn't
need the context -- the quoted copy is just a courtesy copy in this case.

	But for distributed forums -- like Usenet -- with multiple routes from
news server to news server, it is possible for a response from one
server/user [call it svrB] to arrive at a different server [svrC] BEFORE
the original message [from svrA] propagates to [svrC].

	The trim and intersperse/bottom-post is the recommended style in the
"netiquette" RFC https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 section 3.1.1

"""
    - If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
      summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
      enough text of the original to give a context.  This will make
      sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
      Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
      postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
      response to a message before seeing the original.  Giving context
      helps everyone.  But do not include the entire original!
"""
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#110636

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:01 am, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

> The Outlook style works well in a business environment where the
> recipient is likely the original sender of the quoted text, and doesn't
> need the context -- the quoted copy is just a courtesy copy in this case.


No it doesn't work well. It is shit in business environments too. It only
works well in one tiny subset of cases:

(1) Fred sends an email to George.

(2) George responds with a short response that stands alone, or can be
interpreted based only on the subject line.



~ Subject: Drinks on Friday
~ From: Fred
~
~ Hey all, we're going to the Fox and Wheelbarrow for drinks on 
~ Friday at 6pm. Join us!


~ Subject: Re: Drinks on Friday
~ From George
~
~ See you there!
~ 
~ === Message from Fred ===
~ > Hey all, we're going to the Fox and Wheelbarrow for drinks on 
~ > Friday at 6pm. Join us! 


That's about the level of conversation where top posting works well.

But as soon as you get into actual meaningful dialog which requires more
than a one or two sentence reply, ESPECIALLY if you ask more than one
question, top posting is *shit*.


~ Subject: Project X
~ From: Fred
~
~ Hey George, we have a few issues to go over regarding Project X. 
~ For starters, if we are to have any hope of meeting the deadline,
~ the team is going to need to put in some overtime. Do you think
~ Jane will authorise overtime payments, or should we get time off
~ in lieu?
~ Also, there's a problem with Alex, the web designer. You know 
~ that he's a subcontractor, right? Well apparently Accounts hasn't
~ been paying his invoices, and he's threatening to put us on stop
~ and go legal. What should we do?


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ Yeah, sure, I agree.
~
~ === Message from Fred ===
~ > Hey George, we have a few issues to go over regarding Project X. 
~ > For starters, if we are to have any hope of meeting the deadline,
~ > the team is going to need to put in some overtime. Do you think
~ > Jane will authorise overtime payments, or should we get time off
~ > in lieu?
~ > Also, there's a problem with Alex, the web designer. You know 
~ > that he's a subcontractor, right? Well apparently Accounts hasn't
~ > been paying his invoices, and he's threatening to put us on stop
~ > and go legal. What should we do?


Even if George isn't an absolute pillock and actually intends to give a
useful answer, he has to work harder by explicitly referencing the
questions being replied to:


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ Regarding the overtime question, I'll discuss it with Bob and get 
~ him to talk to Jane. He's the project manager, let him earn his
~ salary.
~ Regarding Alex, he's a tit and I'm pretty sure he's overcharging
~ us, so this will be a good opportunity to get rid of him. Tell him
~ there's nothing you can do. Once he puts us on stop, we can steal
~ an in-house web developer from Sarah's team. I still owe her for
~ poaching Manjinder.


It might only be an extra few words each time there's a change of topic, but
it adds up. And because it does require those extra few words, and most
people are lazy, most people don't bother:


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ I'll discuss it with Bob.
~
~ He's a tit and I'm pretty sure he's overcharging us. Tell him 
~ nothing.





-- 
Steven
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.

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#110638

Oh, and while I'm ranting about top-posting, there's another reason why it's
shit. Speaking from experience, it makes searching email archives awful.

I've been in the position of having to go through email archives looking for
relevant email discussions related to a legal dispute. Trying to search for
key words is far less effective with top-posting and no trimming, as the
volume of text you need to deal with increases as (roughly) the square of
the number of emails:

A emails B:
~ Hey!

B replies:
~ Hey yourself!
~ > Hey!

A responds:
~ Wazzup dude?
~ > Hey yourself!
~ >> Hey!

And B responds:
~ Just chillin. And you?
~ > Wazzup dude?
~ >> Hey yourself!
~ >>> Hey!

And the reply:
~ Working hard man. Or hardly working LOL LOL LOL
~ > Just chillin. And you?
~ >> Wazzup dude?
~ >>> Hey yourself!
~ >>>> Hey!

One last response from B:
~ OK catch u later.
~ > Working hard man. Or hardly working LOL LOL LOL
~ >> Just chillin. And you?
~ >>> Wazzup dude?
~ >>>> Hey yourself!
~ >>>>> Hey!

Total lines: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21

which is given by n*(n-1)/2 or O(n**2).


Now imagine that each email contains at least one paragraph of text, plus
(oh joy) an email disclaimer, plus (say) a ten line signature, *all* of
which is typically commented because gods forbid that people use a
signature marker "-- "[1] or that email clients trim anything below it when
present.

Me, bitter? Whatever gave you that impression?




[1] Yes the trailing space is significant.

-- 
Steven
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.

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#110640

On 06/27/2016 08:28 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:01 am, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> 
>> The Outlook style works well in a business environment where the
>> recipient is likely the original sender of the quoted text, and doesn't
>> need the context -- the quoted copy is just a courtesy copy in this case.
> 
> 
> No it doesn't work well. It is shit in business environments too. It only
> works well in one tiny subset of cases:

Indeed. Sometimes it took three emails to get the other person to
actually read what I wrote and answer my questions.  I would email with
a few details and question, and he'd immediately top-post back to me
with a one-sentence answer that had very little to do with my question
and very apparent that he never read anything I wrote.  If he had
middle-posted, while he was trimming my reply he would have read or
re-read what I wrote and responded appropriately.

It's just unbelievable how horrid email communication is in a business
environment when top-posting is prevalent.  I tried on occasion to urge
people to not top-post for these reasons, but by and large people just
thumbed up their nose and went on not reading emails and top-posting.  I
guess it's a special management talent.

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