Jargons of Info Tech industry

[usenet at isbd.co.uk]

In comp.lang.perl.misc Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann at web.de> wrote:
> usenet at isbd.co.uk wrote:
> > In comp.lang.perl.misc John Bokma <john at castleamber.com> wrote:
> >>> the argument that usenet should never change seems a little
> >>> heavy-handed and anachronistic.
> >> No, simple since there *are* alternatives: web based message boards. Those 
> >> alternatives *do* support HTML formatting (often the subset mentioned 
> > 
> > ... and generally these "web based message boards" (i.e. forums I
> > assume you mean) have none of the useful tools that Usenet offers and
> > are much, much slower.
> 
> That is because NNTP and its applications didn't evolve to feed the 
> glitzy need lots of users have.
> 
I don't think they have "glitzy need", they are just fed glitzy (but
slow) forums as the way to get support etc.  If they were told about
the alternatives as well and told how to use them then I thiink those
alternatives would be used.

"NNTP and its applications" have evolved to provide a set of much more
sophisticated means of accessing and giving information than any forum
I've ever seen.


> Sadly web forums (esp. the ugly, sloooow PHPBB, and the unspeakable 
> Google groups) are increasingly replacing usenet, but there are 
> exceptions (DragonflyBSD).
> 
One good solution is a furum which is also accessible by NNTP.


> On the information side (in contrast to the discussion side) RSS is 
> replacing Usenet, with some obvious disadvantages: go on vacation, 
> return after a week, and -- yahoo! -- all your RSS feeds only turn of 
> the, say, most recent 30 articles, while your newsgroups all show 
> everything you missed.
> 
Same applies to most newsfeeds, depending on retention.  If you want
to look a long way back in a thread, use Google Groups.

-- 
Chris Green