(2006-11-24) Atwood Vs Threaded Discussion

Jeff Atwood shares Joel Spolsky's intense dislike of Threaded Discussion. Joel: Branching is very logical to a programmer's mind but it doesn't correspond to the way conversations take place in the real world. Branched discussions are disjointed to follow and distracting. [..] Branching makes discussions get off track. Jeff: Personally, I have yet find any threaded discussion format I like. Aside from the philosophical objections Joel raises, threaded discussions are painful to use. You're forced to click through to see the responses, and once you do, there's far too much pogo-ing up and down the hierarchy of the threaded discussions. It's all so.. unnecessary.