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> 2. The designers correctly realized chronological order isn't enough, you also want logical order, Oh god, please don't, at least not for chat/irc/whatever-y

by sgift 9y ago

> 2. The designers correctly realized chronological order isn't enough, you also want logical order, Oh god, please don't, at least not for chat/irc/whatever-you-call-it. I've seen so many attempts to try to somehow add another layer of order on top of chronological order. All the threads and whatever features and it is always a "what the heck is that, where are my messages, why did they get rearranged" disaster.

rwallace 9y ago
That sounds like attempts to supply logical order instead of chronological, which is indeed a disaster; it needs to be as well as. (i.e. at any given time you can ignore it and just look at things in chronological order.)
Fnoord 9y ago
> Oh god, please don't, at least not for chat/irc/whatever-you-call-it. I've seen so many attempts to try to somehow add another layer of order on top of chronological order. Like threads in e-mail, Usenet, forums on WWW? IMO those are perfect examples of a combined logic and chronology. I'll speak for myself, but I absolutely prefer threads in the mentioned examples. It makes the content better readable. For me, there's no question about that. Although that isn't any proof; it'd be best to have usability studies about it.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Threads is Gmail aren't perfect. Some threads aren't nice neat linear threads and I find I can lose track of branches. But, overall, that's been one of the big wins of switching to Gmail for professional stuff. Now some long but uninteresting thread in a mailing list or whatever is one line rather than overwhelming my inbox.
  - u801e 9y ago
    > Threads is Gmail aren't perfect. If you're referring to conversation view, then they're not as good as traditional threads since they don't handle keeping track of conversation between multiple people that may branch off into different topics.
wpietri 9y ago
I don't think it's impossible. Slack's threads work pretty well for me in busy channels.
errnoh 9y ago
I've seen a lot of failures in this space as well, but I still think Flowdock was the only product so far that got the second layer right. It never tried to hide messages from you, the threads worked more like filters. Instead of finding the discussion you wanted you filtered out messages that weren't related to that discussion.

by sgift 9y ago

rwallace 9y ago

That sounds like attempts to supply logical order instead of chronological, which is indeed a disaster; it needs to be as well as. (i.e. at any given time you can ignore it and just look at things in chronological order.)

Fnoord 9y ago

> Oh god, please don't, at least not for chat/irc/whatever-you-call-it. I've seen so many attempts to try to somehow add another layer of order on top of chronological order. Like threads in e-mail, Usenet, forums on WWW? IMO those are perfect examples of a combined logic and chronology. I'll speak for myself, but I absolutely prefer threads in the mentioned examples. It makes the content better readable. For me, there's no question about that. Although that isn't any proof; it'd be best to have usability studies about it.

ghaff 9y ago
Threads is Gmail aren't perfect. Some threads aren't nice neat linear threads and I find I can lose track of branches. But, overall, that's been one of the big wins of switching to Gmail for professional stuff. Now some long but uninteresting thread in a mailing list or whatever is one line rather than overwhelming my inbox.
- u801e 9y ago
  > Threads is Gmail aren't perfect. If you're referring to conversation view, then they're not as good as traditional threads since they don't handle keeping track of conversation between multiple people that may branch off into different topics.

wpietri 9y ago

I don't think it's impossible. Slack's threads work pretty well for me in busy channels.

errnoh 9y ago

I've seen a lot of failures in this space as well, but I still think Flowdock was the only product so far that got the second layer right. It never tried to hide messages from you, the threads worked more like filters. Instead of finding the discussion you wanted you filtered out messages that weren't related to that discussion.