[2819] in Release_7.7_team
Zephyr reverse-stacking
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Sun Jul 15 00:30:34 2001
Message-Id: <200107150430.AAA09442@egyptian-gods.MIT.EDU>
To: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
cc: aui@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 14 Jul 2001 15:11:32 EDT."
<200107141911.PAA06189@multics.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 00:30:31 -0400
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
I'll try to summarize the arguments. Pro:
* Zephyrs don't appear on top of the one you're currently
reading.
* You read zephyr conversations in order.
* You don't accidentally click away a new message which just
arrived. (More properly solved by setting a min time to
live by default.)
* Anecdotal evidence suggests that most people who know about
it use it.
Against:
* It's a noticeable change, and it's not clear how to change
it back. (We are making a bunch of noticeable changes, of
course, but all of the other ones are easy to change back in
one step.)
* It can detract from the immediacy of Zephyr by burying new
messages behind old ones.
* Reading conversations in reverse order can make it less
likely that you'll do things like respond to questions which
have already been answered.
I have no opinion myself.
As usual, someone suggested making it the default for new accounts and
not old ones; as usual, that approach is (a) technically complicated,
and (b) difficult to document.
