Re: [Pan-users] Making Pan behave like OE/Windows Mail

[David WE Roberts]

"Joe Zeff" <address@hidden> wrote in message 
news:address@hidden
> On 01/27/2013 01:00 PM, David WE Roberts wrote:
> > I still don't understand why the latest threads want to snuggle up next 
> > to
> > the negative scores instead of the positive scores.
>
> Sorting on several fields can be quite tricky.  I remember, once, many 
> many years ago, changing a very slow bubble sort of a list of customers to 
> a shell sort that took 5% of the time.  The data entry person complained 
> because the sort wasn't "stable."  That is, if there were multiple 
> customers with the same last name (what I was asked to sort on) the new 
> list didn't keep the customer numbers in correct order, something I'd not 
> been asked to do.[1]  Alas, the boss decided that the extra work needed to 
> do the second stage of the sort wasn't worth the time and effort.  Here, 
> there may be a subtle bug in that stage, or the devs haven't completely 
> implemented it as yet.
>
> [1]She'd asked for this because with the old routine she could have 
> printed out the list on index cards and hand sorted them faster.  I never 
> said it, but I couldn't help thinking that some people are never 
> satisfied, even if they get exactly what they asked for.


I well remember {cough} years ago visiting the National Savings people at 
Lytham St Annes.
As a demonstration, the boss asked "Do you have any National Saving 
Certificates"?
I said 'Yes' and told him my details and he then showed that the curent 
setup of index cards could get him my details in under (IIRC) 10 seconds, 
just using well trained ladies and some filing cabinets.
Sounds trivial to do now but then (I think we were using 68020s and System 4 
Unix) it was a serious challenge to beat.

I haven't actually checked if the sort is 'unstable' - I don't think it can 
be because watched threads seem to sort in date order.

I further assume that some kind of 'sort' function is used which (if it is 
similar to shell or Perl) can have multiple fields specified.

Argh!
Just had another proper look.
The 'watched' threads also sort in 'oldest first' order so this is a 
deliberate sort policy not an unstable sort where the unsorted fields can 
appear in any order.

Yep - just tested a bit further.
For each numeric score, when sorted on score, the threads are sorted in date 
order oldest first.

So you get score 9999 - oldest to youngest
Followed by score 100 - oldest to youngest
Followed by score 0 - oldest to youngest.
etc.

So not an unstable sort but a sort policy which I don't fully understand.

Bug or a feature?

Cheers

Dave R
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