Re: Generalised approach to storing address details

> > I frickin' *hate* the tree view in Google Groups. I kill that pane whenever I see it and just use pure thread view. Thread view rulez; tree view suxorz. Hierarchy suxorz also, for most things.
>
> Aye. It is very rare to see a usenet forum in tree view these days.

As far as I can tell, every single usenet forum when accessed thru Google, has the option to enable the tree view panel on the left side. This feature remains even in Google's Beta interface. Three advantage of the treeview of message "headers" in the left panel are:

1. Allows one to skips related sections: For example, when one sees something like:

"I have killfiled on general principle: Life is too short."

they can choose to skip the remainder in that section if they want to avoid similar content such as:

"I seem also to have an urge to understand exactly why a crank does not realise that he is in fact a crank, and not some misunderstood savant. Read "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". "We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.".."You think you know everything.", IME, speak about an area that I know a lot about (though, not everything) and that they know comparatively little about. "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

2) Allows one to quickly identity the original message for which the current message is in response to.
3) Allows one to quickly navigate to or locate a particular message in the thread.

> People prefer a linear view, because after a couple of nests our wee
> heeds start to hurt.

I wonder what happens to these people when they open the file explorer. Or do they keep all their files with a depth of two folders? And what about BOMs more that two levels deep?

> In fact, nevermind that, try teaching a first year
> undergrad java and see how much your ears bleed when you they produce
> code with upteen levels of nested if-statement sprawling off the
> screen, and can no longer spot any of their own bugs.

Would you recommend left-justifying source code or limiting indentations to a maximum of two levels? Would this make it easier to spot the bugs? Received on Wed Dec 13 2006 - 22:05:59 CET