Upset digestion.

From: Alex Ferguson <alex_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 95 16:00:21 GMT


David Gadbois confesses, shamefacedly:
> I inevitably interrupt whatever
> Important Stuff I am doing at the time to read the latest from all you
> out there in netland.

Oh, me too. About the only way I can avoid this is by avoiding reading the Digest _at all_ at work. Otherwise, the interrupt-driven scan-read- reply cycle kicks right in. Sometimes, like right now, this fails to happen, however. ;-)

> Note that I am not
> in favor of a dumb mail exploder, since the digest format does impose
> a sort of formal baseline that you just don't get from a constant
> stream of messages.

This may be true, to some small extent. But I'm skeptical as to what extent this effects Quality, particularly when the evidence is so non-existent, and the arguments why it even might are so slight.

At least it's fewer things to click on to go download the latest batch.

> Don't get me started on this stupid UNIX braindamage. Does anyone
> else remeber the days when electronic mail Just Worked and mail user
> programs actually did useful things to help you do the things you
> wanted to do instead of sitting there and spitting at you?

No. ;-) Sounds like what the God Learners would call a Golden Age myth. I'm currently writing an undigester, and a reply-reformater, but getting them to work with mailtool could be tricky.

Alex.


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