Hi Jenda, I would suggest that you need a better mail client or message-filing system. Most good mail clients support thread view precisely for discussions such as this. I can look in the navigation pane, expand or collapse threads as needed, and look to the source message for reference to the original. I believe ost others have similar facilities, as they come packaged with most mail and news clients. I did take thirty seconds to make a folder for this group, and I do take a minute or two with each download to move perl-related messages into that folder. It's not that mush effort to ask.
I do believe that there is a place for inline comments. When well-placed, they can help pinpoint the errors or show how they propgate through a script. It also does impose an extra burden on the reader to parse through messages which they have already read. I would suggest top-posting as a default, inline comments when they serve a real purpose, and that each participant in such a discussion must be responsible for his or her own retention of the thread--especially while still actively engaged. Joseph Jenda Krynicky wrote: > > You are replying to something, why would you put the reply first and > the question next? Keep in mind that this is a mailing list, not a > private communication. Therefore you should consider each mail to be > (almost) selfcontained. I do not store the emails, I do not remember > all the emails I've seen, I read most of them as they come so I can't > even sort by thread and read the whole thread at once. Therefore I > need to read the question before I know whether I'm interested in the > answer and whether I could possibly extend it or correct it if it's > wrong. > > Besides. It's NOT top-post versus bottom-post. If you quote a message > properly (for my definition of properly) then your replies are > interspersed with the original message. If there were several > questions you SHOULD respond to each separately, not wait to the end > of the message. That way YOU do not have to scroll. You do not have > to look several times into the original message to make sure you did > not forget one of the questions, you do not have to describe where in > the code was the problem ... > > And you should ALWAYS delete evertthing that's not important in the > original. Especialy the signatures. > > The way I do it is ... I scan the message quickly. If it sounds > interesting and I feel like replying I click the Reply button, which > copies the original email properly quoted into a new window. > In the new window I read the message, delete unimportant lines, add > comments, read the next chunk, answer the next question, ... > > And when I run out of things to respond to I'm done. > > And the reader can see ... to this line he responded with this, to > that line with that, this line of code provoked this remark ... > > Jenda > == [EMAIL PROTECTED] == http://Jenda.Krynicky.cz == > : What do people think? > What, do people think? :-) > -- Larry Wall in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
