Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!shields
From: shields@ists.yorku.ca (Paul Shields)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Random order news
Summary: no sweat
Message-ID: <170@ists>
Date: 7 Jul 88 08:32:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: ists.170
References: <3652@enea.se>
Sender: news@ists
Lines: 28

In article <3652@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
> Erik E. Fair (fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU) writes:
> >This is a user interface problem - when the user interfaces learn
> >to sort by date, you win. Until then, you are at the mercy of the
> >transport system (which is not going to change *that* fundamentally)
> >which delivers things out of order.
> 
> I don't think the user interface is good place to handle this. 
> [...]

Why not implement it in both the user interface AND transport layers?
Before you call me excessive, look at this: 

    If you implement it in the transport layers alone, you have to
re-order every time a new batch comes in.  This is ludicrous based on the
current file structures.

Implementing part of the re-ordering in, say, sendbatch, will help 
you to keep the out-of-order articles from getting too far apart.
Then your user interface comes along, and doesn't have to do very much
work to complete the reordering.  

Besides, I'd like to be able to sort by posting-time.  Now all we have to
do is get everyone's clocks synchronised.  Probably a harder problem! :-)

Paul Shields, shields@ists.yorku.CA, shields@yunccn.UUCP
(...utzoo!yunexus!ists, ...mnetor!ontmoh!yunccn)!shields
It's amazing just how long it takes to get nothing done.