He does.
>1) When entering a newsgroup or pseudo-newsgroup (like a list), it can ta
>quite a while (sometimes close to 10 seconds) before the list of msgs com
>on screen (this is on a 486-DX4-100, using YARNX under MS-DOS 6.22, so it
>not an old 286 or anything....). I'd like to have some visible indicatio
>that the program is working, perhaps a clear-screen right away, then a me
>to tell me it's doing something, e.g. "Please wait, sorting messages in
>List.Yarn..." or something like that.
When I enter a newsgroup with 700+ messages, it takes no more than 5
seconds. (More like 3 to 4 seconds, actually.) This is on a 486 DX2
66 using OS/2 Warp 4, so it is not a DX4 100 or anything. :)
The major bottleneck is file access, not CPU. When I used a 286 a long
time ago, entering a 500+ group took 30+ seconds with lots of disk
thrashing. I then set up a mere 64KB or 128KB disk cache, and it went
down to like 5 seconds or so on the same 286. Pretty amazing. Do not
believe your favourite salesman's claim that a computer system with a
faster CPU is faster. The computer system is as slow as the most
frequently used component, which may be CPU, or hard disk, or floppy
drive, or printer, or modem, or yourself, depending on what you do with
the computer. Yarn flies when you give it a decent disk cache (and
just about any disk cache is decent).
A minor bottleneck is the use of YARNX. I believe DOS extenders give
you a little performance penalty, especially when there is a
significant number of file access. Everytime a DOS function is needed
(e.g. reading from a file), the computer has to switch from protected
mode back to real mode, use DOS file access, then switch back to
protected mode to continue to run the program. Every time. Pretty
silly. Since entering a newsgroup involves multiple file accesses, it
is a pretty tedious exercise.
>2) It is disconcerting for a new user (ok, I'm no longer a _new_ user of
>it's been 2 months or so) to be asked to "Delete messages?" when exiting
>reading msgs. The program should have advised the user that "One (or mor
>message(s) have been marked for deletion"; then when exiting, the questio
>about deleting is less worrisome.
Yarn 0.92 does that. "Expunge messages marked for deletion?"
>3) when exiting altogether, if replies still have to be packed, or other
>housekeeping performed, it can take quite a while before the program actu
>quits. Again, here, a message box should advise the user "Please wait...
>Packing your replies..." or whatever.
I probably agree, but a decent disk cache takes care of that too. But
here we have one more factor: your replies are compressed. That takes
some time. If you set up CONFIG or GLOBAL to ask the compressor not to
compress, that will save some time. Plus a decent disk cache, it will
be much more acceptable.
I add a wish:
4) when saving user's replies, Yarn may like to truncate or cut at the
column 75 right margin, so that the replies won't look stupid outside
in the world. (Hint hint.)
-- Albert Y.C. Lai trebla@vex.net http://www.vex.net/~trebla/