Re: [boost] is review system in place is extremely slow? (was Re: [rfc] rcpp)

Subject: Re: [boost] is review system in place is extremely slow? (was Re: [rfc] rcpp)
From: DE (satan66613_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-02-25 13:35:44

on 24.02.2010 at 21:10
 Mateusz Loskot wrote :
> My personal opinion:

> Please do not migrate to Web-based forum!

> Traditional form of mailing list *is* a very convenient
> form of discussion forum.
> I allows to participate in discussions in single place - my own
> e-mail reader. I participate in number of mailing lists and it is
> very important for me to be able to participate easily, from single 
> place. Using e-mail reader, I can check new messages of all those
> lists, skim and filter them quickly and get focused on those I'm
> interested in and archive those I'm interested in. All in single place.
> Having limited amount of free time, as every one here I suppose,
> I can't even imagine how much time it would take to do the same after
> all mailing lists are replaced by forums.
in web world that "single place" is an rss reader

> Using e-mail client, checking out new messages is constant time O(c)
> with Web forum it is O(n) what would significantly lead to cut down
> number of communities I'd like to participate.
> Having N forums, I'd need to load N websites,
> input my credentials N times, perform N x M clicks to browse a thread,
> another bunch of clicks to read a post, another bunch of clicks to reply.
i'd say that checking for new messages in a forum or in a specific
thread of a forum not only constant time but also faster than
downloading all unread messages from a mailing list
furthermore there are subscriptions (for new messages in a forum or in
a specific thread) and also features like "show all unread messages" or
"show new threads" etc.

> I have participated in number of Web forums and every time it was taking
> order of magnitude longer to reply/post than it takes with simple 
> Thunderbird e-mail client. Single gateway for all discussions.

 >> imho discussion and other activities are MUCH MORE convenient in a
 >> forum-like environment (for example see intel software network:
 >> http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/)

> A week ago, I posted my first message to Intel forum and this interface
> is very unusable. The search function is unusable comparing to 
> simplicity and accuracy of:

> +word +another site:http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost

> Simply, Web forums do not work well at all with high volume
> technical  discussions.
> There *is* a reason and well-settled rationale why most technical
> communities prefer mailing lists. And, the reason is *not* because
> they are a legacy type of old school hackers! It's about performance and
> usability, but usability does not mean HTML formatting which is
> useless for technical forums.
first, it's a matter of taste
second, the fact that you have not seen well working forum does not mean
that there is no such thing at all

-- 
Pavel