[mdlug] List archive and long lines

[Aaron Kulkis]

Dan Pritts wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 10:51:36PM +0300, Aaron Kulkis wrote:
>> It's inherently slow.  Any HTTP interaction over the web is inherently
>> slower than a simple disk access to an email which has been ALREADY
>> downloaded moments, hours, or even months earlier... (or more commonly
>> with Linux and Unix, a mere disk buffer access that's already loaded
>> into memory).
> 
> that's true but a really bright webmail application will download it
> before you want it and hold it in memory and/or cached on disk (dunno
> if javascript allows you to cache objects to the disk cache).
> 
> gmail isn't quite there but it comes close.  I don't particularly
> like the overall design of the app but it works very well over the
> web for me.  The new yahoo app is much slower - it doesn't do as
> much prefetching, and/or the backend isn't as fast.
> 
> I wonder whether gmail locates your mail at a data center close to
> where you usually log in if they can - google really understands
> network latency and works around it the best they can.  That would explain
> a lot of the difference between them and yahoo.
> 
> In the general case with all the other webmail apps i've tried,
> you're right, Aaron.  
> 
>> The new yahoo blows ******* ... I've used it, and had to switch back
>> to the old style, because, while the idea looked neat and everything,
>> i had just too many failures.  Not everyone is sitting on a T1 line....
> 
> Are you on a satellite link?  If so, then the latency must *really*
> be a bitch.

That's an understatement.....

ping to servers in the U.S. is typically 4 seconds.

Telephone calls (regardless of how...even in AT&T calling centers)
has 4-6 seconds latency.  Conversations usually have a lot of stepping
on each other until the other person gets used to the delay.

>            Even if you're on terrestrial circuits/wireless, latency
> is still a bitch coming as far as you're coming.  Ouch.
> 
> I too had problems with the yahoo app.
>