Re: public-inbox-httpd feature request: sort oldest-first

[Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>]

Nicolás Ojeda Bär <n.oje.bar@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 8:13 AM, Eric Wong <e@80x24.org> wrote:
> > Nicolás Ojeda Bär <n.oje.bar@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Unless I missed something there does not seem to be a way to sort the
> >> message list oldest-to-newest. A little arrow somewhere to invert the
> >> order would be nice to have.
> >
> > Right; it's always favors newest messages.  We usually find
> > newer messages more relevant and also git packs are optimized
> > for newer data.
> >
> > I'll take your request into consideration, but am currently
> > against this:

So I've realized reversing results can be faster than "git blame"
in some cases, so I've implemented this:

  https://public-inbox.org/meta/20190615202342.7730-1-e@80x24.org/T/

> > I don't want to go down the path of making the WWW interface too
> > complex or trying to satisfy everybody with it.  User interface
> > is a PERSONAL choice and I want it to remain that way.

So I didn't state this before; but one of my concerns was about
extra parameters and inconsistent ordering leading to duplicate
cache entries (in either the client or varnish).

So I managed to overload the "o=" paramter to use negative
values, which makes sense to users of Perl (and similar)
languages which allow negative array indices to look backwards.

I'm actually regretting making "x=" a separate parameter,
instead of just replacing "q="...

So I might also start 301-ing search requests to enforce a
consistent ordering for cache-friendliness...

> I share this point of view. Having said that, _personally_ I still
> feel reverse date ordering is an important feature to have in the web
> interface.

Fair enough.  I'm considering developing some sort of REST API or
just for search; since their's no provision for it in NNTP; and
IMAP search capabilities are too limited.