Question on compiling on linux

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:01 am, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

> The Outlook style works well in a business environment where the
> recipient is likely the original sender of the quoted text, and doesn't
> need the context -- the quoted copy is just a courtesy copy in this case.


No it doesn't work well. It is shit in business environments too. It only
works well in one tiny subset of cases:

(1) Fred sends an email to George.

(2) George responds with a short response that stands alone, or can be
interpreted based only on the subject line.



~ Subject: Drinks on Friday
~ From: Fred
~
~ Hey all, we're going to the Fox and Wheelbarrow for drinks on 
~ Friday at 6pm. Join us!


~ Subject: Re: Drinks on Friday
~ From George
~
~ See you there!
~ 
~ === Message from Fred ===
~ > Hey all, we're going to the Fox and Wheelbarrow for drinks on 
~ > Friday at 6pm. Join us! 


That's about the level of conversation where top posting works well.

But as soon as you get into actual meaningful dialog which requires more
than a one or two sentence reply, ESPECIALLY if you ask more than one
question, top posting is *shit*.


~ Subject: Project X
~ From: Fred
~
~ Hey George, we have a few issues to go over regarding Project X. 
~ For starters, if we are to have any hope of meeting the deadline,
~ the team is going to need to put in some overtime. Do you think
~ Jane will authorise overtime payments, or should we get time off
~ in lieu?
~ Also, there's a problem with Alex, the web designer. You know 
~ that he's a subcontractor, right? Well apparently Accounts hasn't
~ been paying his invoices, and he's threatening to put us on stop
~ and go legal. What should we do?


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ Yeah, sure, I agree.
~
~ === Message from Fred ===
~ > Hey George, we have a few issues to go over regarding Project X. 
~ > For starters, if we are to have any hope of meeting the deadline,
~ > the team is going to need to put in some overtime. Do you think
~ > Jane will authorise overtime payments, or should we get time off
~ > in lieu?
~ > Also, there's a problem with Alex, the web designer. You know 
~ > that he's a subcontractor, right? Well apparently Accounts hasn't
~ > been paying his invoices, and he's threatening to put us on stop
~ > and go legal. What should we do?


Even if George isn't an absolute pillock and actually intends to give a
useful answer, he has to work harder by explicitly referencing the
questions being replied to:


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ Regarding the overtime question, I'll discuss it with Bob and get 
~ him to talk to Jane. He's the project manager, let him earn his
~ salary.
~ Regarding Alex, he's a tit and I'm pretty sure he's overcharging
~ us, so this will be a good opportunity to get rid of him. Tell him
~ there's nothing you can do. Once he puts us on stop, we can steal
~ an in-house web developer from Sarah's team. I still owe her for
~ poaching Manjinder.


It might only be an extra few words each time there's a change of topic, but
it adds up. And because it does require those extra few words, and most
people are lazy, most people don't bother:


~ Subject: Re: Project X
~ From: George
~
~ I'll discuss it with Bob.
~
~ He's a tit and I'm pretty sure he's overcharging us. Tell him 
~ nothing.





-- 
Steven
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.