On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:07:47 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:06:11 +0100 >"Constantine A. Murenin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > >> On 19/10/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > There is a legitimate use for top posting. >> > Deletion and/or answer of message in 10 to 15 >seconds or less. >> >> Nonsense. Just because your MS Outlook does not >support or is not >> configured to support bottom-posting, doesn't >mean that you should >> find some invalid excuses for top-posting. > >With a sig like mine I coudln't resist a resounding >"me too" on this >one;-) My sig concisely demonstrates in a >nutshell why top posting is >problematic, if not an all out pita. > ><rant> >Before johnny-come-lately M$ decided to jump on the >interenet bandwagon >w/ their lame software top posting was completely >unheard of. I've >been using Unix since '81 so I think I can say this >w/some certainty. >Top posting is just a lame excuse offered by lame >software developers >who wrote a lame mua w/o bothering to read any >rfc's, research >conventions, etc. prior to doing so. A point >obvious to those who cut >their teeth on *nix rather than M$. ></rant> > > >-- >Best regards, > >Ken Gunderson > >Q: Because it reverses the logical flow of >conversation. >A: Why is putting a reply at the top of the message >frowned upon?
Ok, OK. This would not work in top posting. And the complexity of this is essentially trivial. Microsoft is good for someone with no knowledge or skill throwing something into Word or Outlook and having something come out looking quite presentable. But woe to anyone who actually cares critically what it looks like. > Yep. If you're stuck on an M$ platform for whatever reason Yep. The question is when and how to jump. Maybe why. To what "should" matter, but I suspect that how you go about it, and the expectations probably matter more. Nasty question. Which works better (or worse depending on your viewpoint), thinking Linux and using OpenBSD, or thinking OpenBSD and using Linux? [rant] Security should be a reason, but I cannot put security mattering in the same universe as five cent compromized computers. My impression of NT4 was that it was unsecurable, so I didn't. My impression of XP is that it is guaranteed insecure. My users do NOT "click on everything". Analogies to babies putting everything into their mouths probably have something to do with it. Hiding stuff from users seems like a fatally bad idea. Hiding error messages from users is maybe not a good idea either. Just because the dumb computer thinks it has a problem does NOT mean that the intelligent user has a problem. Everything I've seen indicates that intelligent user/dumb compuer is the way to play it. Moreso as the computers get bigger, faster, more complicated. Intelligent computer has the fatal flaw that the computer does not know what the computer does not know. A bit like the flat=earth society where the edge is not visible from the inside. [/rant] With a wee bit of editing, bottom posting is quite workable. (I've got too much work related where top posting (like Done.) is necessary. For this list, it is emphatically worth the trouble. As simple and straight-forward as this is, I defy anyone to translate it intelligently into top-posting. Top posting is designed to terminate conversations. Bottom posting encourages continuing and exploring various alternatives. If I were actually talking about something relevant, bottom posting gives many places to attach something. Since I am not distracting with relevant stuff, we can play with the structure of the beasties temselves. FWIW. I LIKE this list. I like the way you all think. Not nearly as concise as your sig ;)
