Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!NORTHSTAR.DARTMOUTH.EDU!tobeye From: tobeye@NORTHSTAR.DARTMOUTH.EDU (Anthony Edwards) Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.andrew Subject: messages - a confession Message-ID: Date: 10 Jul 90 20:55:35 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 33 I am a big messages supporter at our site. I think it really enhances mail messages to be able to use italic, special fonts, or insets. However, I have a confession. I don't always use messages. I use /ucb/mail as well. Messages is just too slow. I have a .AMS.flames file which is very busy (it sorts up to 50 user ids into one of 12 folders). We're also connected via AFS 3.0 to CMU's bboards (thus how I read info-andrew). Just to read in new mail (say 2 to 4 messages) can take up to a minute. That's ridiculous. I find myself telling messages to read my mail and then coming back to the program 5 minutes later to see what mail I got. THEN, clicking on mail messages doesn't promptly bring up my message. I typcially see a 2-4 second delay. (Remember that the typical user's patience is .5 seconds for computer response). So, these days, I typically read my mail with /ucb/mail (unless it's ATK formatted) and then let messages go and sort my mail into appropriate folders. Do other people have similar problems? To be fair, my problem may stem from my heavy use of FLAMES (so, therefore, maybe I should be flaming FLAMES...?) I remember a discussion a while back initiated by Nathaniel to take the dynamic loading out of these ATK programs to improve their speed. Maybe that could be a workable solution. (System spec: I'm running messages on an IBM RT, running AOS 4.3, with 8 Mb of memory. I may have the memory for UNIX, X, and Messages to all run happily, but then where's the memory for me to do what my job is...?) - Anthony