Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!key!jsp
From: jsp@key.COM (James Preston)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: America Online
Message-ID: <1330@key.COM>
Date: 21 Dec 89 17:35:59 GMT
References: <1989Dec9.170635.22759@cs.rochester.edu> <24891@cup.portal.com> <1989Dec11.165834.7605@cs.rochester.edu> <7991@ingr.com>
Reply-To: jsp@penguin.key.COM (James Preston)
Organization: Key Computer Laboratories, Fremont
Lines: 33

In article <7991@ingr.com> gentrys@ingr.com (Scott Gentry) writes:
}In article <1989Dec11.165834.7605@cs.rochester.edu>, fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk) writes:
}> Once again, the AO people on this net have completely missed the point.
}
}Not all of us.
}I'm happy to say that I know exactly what you're talking about and that I 
}agree fully.  Caching the menu structure is a logical extension--up to a point.
}You see, you stumbled upon that point in earlier posts... You will eventually
}have to sign-on to update your lists.  What I and most of the Forum Leaders
}would really like to see are the old (read those you've seen) items stored
}locally.  This would allow you get only NEW items at login (you would still be
}able to access old items through the old method).  However, downloading the 
}entire structure of all menus/forums/areas is not practical.  
}
}Practicality... Things change daily, sometimes greatly.  Would you want to 
}pay for the two or three hours it might take to update your lists?  If I read
}you correctly, you want the entire system to be downloaded so you can 
}navigate locally.  Think about those three hours.

I'm sorry to say, you don't quite know _exactly_ what he's talking about;
close, but no cigar.  Who says that just because all of the lists are stored
locally that you have to update _all_ of the lists all at once?  Is there some
inherent reason that the local and AOL-main software couldn't cooperate with
each other so that a particular menu or list is only updated when it is used?
I already posted a demonstration of this; it's rather trivial.  When a menu
is called for, the local software just asks the main software if the local
copy is uptodate.  If not, it's updated; if so, the local copy is used.  Sure,
this means that you can't operate _entirely_ locally.  But you're only
sending a few bits to enquire about a date, which is a helluva lot better
then sending the entire menu.  And even that can be optimized so that the
inquiry is only done the first time per session that a menu is requested.

--James Preston