>I’d rather know what the other person were typing as she typed it.<p>>And it used to be that I did. Long before instant messaging programs even existed, there was a Unix program for chatting called “talk” (and variations like “ytalk” and “ntalk”). The interface was not like that of chat programs today, where you type a message in the bottom, then hit Enter to send it over the wire to your friend. Instead, talk split the screen in half and transmitted everything you typed letter by letter. If you typed something and then deleted it, your friend would see the whole gaffe. Your text and your friend’s text were never combined into sequence.<p>I have to admit, i'm not sure if I share the author's enthusiasm for such a system.<p>It would be heavily dependent on who i'm talking to. If this were the default way of messaging with no other options, this would get a hard no from me. But, with certain people in certain situations, a modern version of this would actually be pretty nice.<p>Still, I wish overall there were more options for disabling things like typing indicators, read reports, constant online status indicators altogether. My biggest problem isn't so much their existence, but the inability to fully disable them in most cases.
I dont mind that, what drives me nuts is the people who say "hi", then wait for you to say "hi", then they start typing the message they wanted to send, taking 5 minutes to write a short essay, while you're sitting there distracted and waiting.
I hated the behavior then, I hate it now, and will continue to despise it in the future. I am not being hyperbolic in my adjective choice. I have seen real work drama over this sort of thing, because people misinterpret the 'is-typing' as 'is-paying-attention-to-me', and the inevitable long delays, short replies, forced focusing on waiting for someone to finish... It is an anti-social antipattern from beginning to end.
Back when I worked at Apple, I opened a somewhat detailed issue against the messaging application trying to explain some of the mental health implications of "the dot dot dots". Sadly, the issue was moved somewhere I didn't have access, and surely ignored.<p>I quit that stupid job.<p>P.S. I still believe (... though it may be overly complex) that a group of users should be able to <i>opt-in</i> to this mode. But by default, and perhaps on a timeout, it is disabled.
Yeah Yahoo IM had that, but they used different servers for the 'activity' messages and the actual text. So you could get the "typing" indication <i>after you had received the message</i>. It was often out of order, and very confusing.<p>Our message app (Sococo) was rigorous about sending activity messages, from peer to peer. Not periodically; just when typing began or 'timed out', or when focus was gained or lost (desktop app). So a minimum of messages got sent, not the barrage of ping-style message the other guys sent.
In all fairness to the Author, people make up excuses for their behavior to justify it.<p>He may actually be deeply conflicted but this is a defense mechanism.
It makes you feel like once you start typing something, you have to at least send something, even if you change your mind about replying.<p>And I’m always skeptical of these “I invented it” type posts. The talk command on Unix actually allowed you to see what the other person was typing in real time, letter by letter.
I don’t mind this behaviour. It can be difficult to coordinate when you don’t know whether the other person is done yet or not. Back in the old days we used to, as the end of the article says, send lots of little bits of text to deal with this (to older/less internet-savvy people’s great annoyance, as they treated chat just like email, and would be furious when their wall of text was responded to with half a sentence!) but it made the chat very disjointed and you’d end up having to deal with multiple simultaneous stands of conversation. Anyway, the real problem is people who ask “what were you typing?” when you delete your message or take a long time. You don’t want to know!<p>I’ve never used a ‘live’ chat like he describes but I really like the idea. Is there anything modern that provides that?
I seem to remember that on one of the chat services, there was a trick to see what the other person was typing before they hit Enter. Something like the client actually sent updates as the other user typed, and your client would receive it, but not display it until the message was marked "sent"... but third-party clients could just show you the in-progress messages. Anyone remember this?
I find it interesting that when I was growing up, the person who invented the typing notification feature would have presented it as an achievement.<p>Now these articles start with him taking the 'blame'.<p>It feels so... like a new world... where most people are offended and angry by every tiny little annoyance of modern life. Where being angry and pessimistic is almost fashionable. Complaining about life, feeling hopeless, prophesizing disaster and externalizing problems is something people do to 'brag'.<p>I feel schools should include a decent amount of volunteering with people who have real problems. Maybe that way the next generation won't be so quick to focus on the negative. We're living in the best of times by all objective measurements.