(Moving to fpc-other).

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

NNTP is still the most used public discussion medium on the internet, and for good reason - it works very well.

I haven't found a project that uses NNTP for a long time. How do you know it's the most used? My main problem with it was that you can't keep track of read messages across different computers. I don't want to use a web browser with a crappy interface to read news either, so I've stopped using NNTP for good, now.

Henry

Henry Vermaak wrote

I haven't found a project that uses NNTP for a long time.

fpGUI - GUI Toolkit since 2005/6)
tiOPF - Object Persistence Framework since 1999)
OpenWatcom - C/C++ Compiler,IDE,Debugger,etc.
Indy - Internet components used by Delphi and FPC. NexusDB - Database server split from TurboPower FlashFiler since years ago.
Embarcadero - all products, announcements and developer areas Usenet - Over a 100,000 newsgroups already. Yes, alt.binary is probably the biggest contributor to the 9 TerraBytes of storage requirements, but areas like comp.lang.* is still being used by programmers and IT admins today. Use Google Groups to see recent posts.

...the lists can go on. You just haven't been paying attention. ;-)

How do you know it's the most used?

Considering Usenet was launched in 1980 already, has over 100,000 newsgroups, plus the thousands of private hosted NNTP servers around. And yes (as somebody else also asked), I did actually read recently some web page about NNTP usage statics. NNTP is still very much used.

My main problem with it was that you can't keep track of read messages across different computers.

Mobile users tend to use laptops, so no problem there. Alternatively, use you smart phone and install a NNTP client there (iOS and Android has NNTP clients).

If the project you are monitoring doesn't get 1000's of new messages a day (I even consider Lazarus discussions small) it is still not so much of a problem marking a bunch of message as read. Simple "mark as read by date" functionality exists in most NNTP clients (I know Mozilla Thunderbird does). Even temporary changing to unthreaded view and order-by-date is a quick solution.

There are lots of benefits to NNTP though:

- easier to navigate than web forums
- hierarchy of conversations are standard
- you can choose your favourite NNTP client
- new users can follow existing discussions by seeing past messages easily. Mailing lists fail miserably here.
- It's a pull medium, not a push medium. So I only see message when I really want to.
- a clear separation between my email and project discussions
- simpler to prevent spam
- messages can be cancelled if posted in error
- offline reading
- offline searching
- way faster than web forums
...etc

Regards,
- Graeme -

I think Henry meant that differently. I'll describe myself as an example though I don't use NNTP except for the fpGUI fora:

I use three computers: my mobile computer, my computer at home and my smart phone to keep track of discussions on the FPC and Lazarus lists. Now with GoogleMail if I get new messages on one computer and read those messages they will be set as "read" on the server (IMAP!) and when I download them on one of the other they will stay that way. With NNTP I need to pay attention which messages I've already read and which not. At least this is how I understood Henry's remark.

Regards,
Sven

Exactly. NNTP makes it easy to miss things, never mind the time and brain energy wasted to remember which things I've read.

Also with email, I can filter messages in one place, with NNTP I'll need to set up filters with every client, if the client even supports it. One more thing to synchronise.

Henry

Wow, I must have missed them since they didn't turn up in my distro repository :) None of the FOSS projects I've worked with have used NNTP.

...the lists can go on. You just haven't been paying attention. ;-)

Seems like we pay attention to different things.

Mobile users tend to use laptops, so no problem there. Alternatively, use you smart phone and install a NNTP client there (iOS and Android has NNTP clients).

I use a desktop at work, may read mail on my phone, but rarely reply from it. Using a phone for NNTP will just make it worse: one more client to synchronise.

There are lots of benefits to NNTP though:

These are not exclusively benefits of NNTP.

- easier to navigate than web forums

Personal taste. I don't personally like web forums, but I've seen some that are nice to navigate. Web browsers are heavyweight clients. They are ubiquitous, though.

- hierarchy of conversations are standard

Also with email.

- you can choose your favourite NNTP client

I can choose my email client.

- new users can follow existing discussions by seeing past messages

Archive for mailing lists are standard now. Some of them don't have nice interfaces, but they are searchable.

With NNTP, I'm _never_ going to pull all the past messages just because I want to search them. So there I need to use the archive, too.

- It's a pull medium, not a push medium. So I only see message when I really want to.

I can collect mail when I want to?

- a clear separation between my email and project discussions

Email filters, aliases (server side, of course, so that all your clients see the same messages, no matter from which computer you access them).

Etc, etc, etc.

Do you have a list of _actual_ benefits of NNTP?

Henry

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

There are lots of benefits to NNTP though:

There are a lot of different things here though.

* Classic "push" NNTP between servers.

* "Pull" NNTP from a client to a (local) server, correctly called NNRP.

* The headers etc. used as metadata by discussion-group messages.

* The control message formats used by NNTP that in principle allow a user to cancel one of his postings even if it's propagated to servers he doesn't know about.

* Discussion group readers, which by now are pretty much indistinguishable from mail clients.

And so on. I certainly agree that NNRP is worth supporting as a delivery option. I certainly agree that discussion-group metadata should be supported or at least learnt from. I've got no strong opinion on how best to organise a backend, particularly in view of typical discussion-group (innd etc.) servers' very poor resilience to e.g. abrupt shutdown.

Henry Vermaak wrote

None of the FOSS projects I've worked with have used NNTP.

That hardly makes NNTP obsolete. It just means we move in different "software" circles.

Do you have a list of _actual_ benefits of NNTP?

Right back at you for Mailing Lists and Web Forums.

Graeme.

Sven Barth wrote

I think Henry meant that differently.

I understood Henry perfectly. I worked like that too. Desktop and work, and our tolerances to what is "brain energy" is
quite different. Maybe Henry just hasn't bother to learn the shortcuts or features of the News client he uses.

Take Mozilla Thunderbird as an example...here are some shortcuts:

R - mark whole thread as read. If the topic doesn't grab my attention this option gets used often.
N - Jump to next unread message. This jumps across message topics too. I also have Thunderbird setup to mark a message as read as soon as the message has been opened - no delays.
C - short for "catch-up". Mark message as read between dates. Great for if you have been away on holiday, and don't care about old topics.
\ - collapse all expanded message threads. Quickly giving you an overview of what is going on.

There are lots more like these. Then I haven't even touched on message filters. eg: I have standard filters in email and news clients that mark topics in green if they replied to one of my messages, or it has my name mentioned.

With all these, it literally too me <10 seconds to sync my home laptop to the same message state I left my work PC. Considering how long it takes to actually read and reply to messages, than <10 is hardly any effort or "brain energy".

Now these things simply can't be done with Web Forums. 99% of them have linear views (think Gmail layout here) or hierarchies (of whole messages), and not just a hierarchy of titles. So you scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll.....ZZZZzzzzz... Oh, and then each new topic needs to be clicked and whole web pages need to be reloaded, with MB's of images and JavaScript etc, and that is so damn slow compared to NNTP clients which just pulls the actual message when you need it. I have a 60Mb fibre optic internet connection, and I still think web forums are slow!

I don't care how old the NNTP protocol is. The reality, even after 30+ years, is than Newsgroups are still miles ahead of the current 'web forums' idea.

Graeme.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

best to organise a backend, particularly in view of typical discussion-group (innd etc.) servers' very poor resilience to e.g. abrupt shutdown.

I use 'sn' NNTP Server. It runs on just about any *nix type operating system. It is ideal for small to medium size newsgroups and has pull support. I must say that it holds up very well to abrupt shutdowns, like power failures etc which South Africa is very prone to having (many power failures per year). Touch wood, I have been running sn for 7 years, and haven't had a single corrupt newsgroup, but maybe the secret is in how sn stores its messages. One directory for each newsgroup and lots of numbered files (they look like text with a small 2 line binary header). Each numbered file stores something like 10-15 messages.

I'm using sn v0.3.8

Graeme.

I definitely agree regarding web forums. :)

Regards,
Sven

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

> Do you have a list of _actual_ benefits of NNTP? Right back at you for Mailing Lists and Web Forums.

_You're_ the one advertising NNTP, I don't have an agenda here. I'm just pointing out that your "benefits" aren't exclusive to NNTP. I've already explained why I prefer email, but I'm not trying to convert anyone. I realise that different people need different tools and solutions based on workflow, setup and preferences. You seem to think that your opinion is the only valid one around here, though.

It's interesting to note that both fpgui and mse{ide|gui} are using NNTP; both those projects have a bus factor of around 1. I wonder if that's related to the stubbornness of the respective developers.

Henry

Henry Vermaak wrote

already explained why I prefer email, but I'm not trying to convert anyone.

Neither am I. I just pointed out my opinion and experiences. Some seem to read more into that than I.

It's interesting to note that both fpgui and mse{ide|gui} are using NNTP;

Actually you are wrong. MSEide+MSEgui uses a mailing list. Some of those developers (just like in Lazarus and FPC mailing lists) use GMANE to read/write via a NNTP client.

Graeme.

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Actually you are wrong. MSEide+MSEgui uses a mailing list. Some of those

Right, he must have changed over to a mailing list some time after I stopped using NNTP.

Henry

NNTP and Mailing Lists are better the Web forums for the simple reason that you can pull the whole history onto your own computer and it is there for good. Quite simply you get a whole archive of all the activity on the mailing list or newsgroup from the time you joined,and even going back further. They may not convenient, but "professional discipline" requires it.

Try that with a web forum when it closes. People have been seduced by the ease of browsers, gmail, hotmail etc, but these days, you can probably get a good smartphone, or raspberry pi on which you can install a client that you can carry everywhere with you, or dedicate to the task in some shelf of your home.

What mailing lists lack are web clients that will handle markdown a la Github or Stackoverlow