[messaging] Message order in group chat (attempt at summary)

[Trevor Perrin]

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Michael Rogers
<michael at briarproject.org> wrote:
>
> If we're aiming to support linear conversations rather than threaded
> conversations, we may need even less information than that. We can
> model a linear conversation as a series of instants, with one or more
> messages per instant; messages that occur in the same instant are
> considered simultaneous. (There are no empty instants - each instant
> lasts until somebody speaks.)
>
> To display such a conversation, we need some way to indicate that A
> follows B, and some way to indicate that A and B are simultaneous. We
> don't need threads or nesting.

That's not strictly true - if A and B simultaneously respond to X,
then C and D could simultaneously respond to B (not having seen A),
and now we have nesting.

You could argue this will be infrequent, and threads will mostly be
linear with only the occasional simultaneous send (and with nesting
even rarer).

If that's true, maybe the UI doesn't need to display nested
structures, but just needs to show some sign for "muddle" or
"simultaneous send" when things get more complex than linear?


Trevor