by islon on 4/1/22, 7:32 AM with 1 comments
by nonrandomstring on 4/1/22, 8:57 AM
I gave a class yesterday to 30 students on the differences between IM and email. Despite all the technicalities of store-forward versus connection oriented, key exchanges, PGP and SMIME, forward secrecy and so on... they were much more of the opinion that it's the expectation of pace that really matters.
Who sets the pace and why?
Slowing down over-eager bosses by saying "I'm thinking about what you asked/said and have yet to formulate a reply" is a way to bring them gently back to a slower frame.
Many of us send a message and get anxious 10 minutes later that we haven't been heard/validated.
Today I felt this very comforting space of async. I am corresponding with a hacker named Ploum (Offpunk and AV-98-offline), who is - well - offline for a month to get some work done. With memories of communicating to devs on an Antarctic research ship that made satellite connections every three of four days, I decided I don't need to respond to the last message until maybe next week, and we'll both have time to thik about what we're saying more.