From: Shalev NessAiver <shalev@...>
Date: 2005-02-17T09:44:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby + end user applications

Ideas? I never have a shortage of ideas for cool/useful apps. Just tell  
me a topic or focus
and I'll give you some ideas:)

One thing that I've been thinking of, but don't yet have the  
expertiseto write, is an alternative to mailing lists.
The problems with mailing lists (the way I see it) are as follows:

You have the same information being sent to hundreds of people. This  
results
in:

1. A waste of overall disk space. Many people don't read every message,  
some people
rarely read the list at all, and others don't even remember their on  
the list. As a result
we have space on hundreds of hard drives being taken up by messages of  
which only
a few will be actually read.

2. A waste of bandwidth.  For much the same reasons, having a mailing  
server forward
a message to hundreds of people is a tremendous waste of bandwidth.


Solution:

Instead of having every message sent to every person, create a specific  
"mailing list client"
that is able to access a "mailing list server". Users of that client  
would be able to browse a list
of messages on the server, and select messages they wish to read (as in  
a normal email client).
The difference is, only messages which they select are downloaded and  
displayed to the user.
Additionally, the messages are (optionally) not stored on the users  
computer and continue to
remain on the mailing list server.  A single file keeps track of which  
files have already been viewed
by the user.  In this way only the messages that a user specifically  
requests are sent to that user.

While this is the basic system, many features and add-ons already  
suggest themselves to me.

Hmmm, maybe I WILL have a go at this after all.  Wadda ya think?

-Shalev


On Feb 16, 2005, at 6:28 AM, Derek Wyatt wrote:

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> I may just be in line to write one of these "cool, simple to use, end
> user applications" (after i'm happier with my ruby expertise).  My
> problem is coming up with one to write :)  Does anyone have a list of  
> ideas?
>
> Regs,
> Derek
>
> martinus wrote:
> | Ruby definitely needs more cool, simple to use, end user  
> applications.
> | Have a look at what kind of feedback this can generate:
> |
> |  
> http://www.phpbbserver.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php? 
> t=51&mforum=xdccfetch#230
> |
> | martinus
> |
> |
> |
>
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