Hacker News Reader

Comment by selectnull | Hacker News Reader

I've switched to gmail some 4 years ago and before that was Outlook user since the 90es; that means I'm not familiar with the latest office version but it's not like I'm speaking without any experience.

Gmail has one of the best keyboard shortcuts ever, thing that always anoyed me with Outlook was that focus would get stuck between two panes and the only way out was to click with mouse. With few labels, powerful filter and incredible search, yeah I would say gmail is more powerful than Outlook. But like I said in previous comment, let's all agree that it is subjective.

What's definitely not subjective is Gmail being faster in search which still baffles me (outlook being slower). But having more than 10GB of email being searched almost instantly is something that I never managed to do with Outlook (and no, I never did have nor wanted to manage exchange server).

View on HN

I don't search much. What I do a lot of is sort my inbox by sender. Pretty basic feature right there.

To play devil's advocate - isn't the reason you're sorting so that you can find information more easily? Aren't you manually performing search yourself?

While not perfect, I think searching for "from:sender" is more efficient than sort by sender.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Gmail has a different philosophy of working with data (search instead of sort) and I've noticed more than once that some people refuse to make that mental switch.

Ever wondered why sorting is an option at all? Search requires you to know something explicit about what you're looking for (without a search term you have nothing).

How about sorting by subject, email size or whether an attachment exists or not? Search is great, but only brings you to the item you want. After that you might want to explore related items (such as a mail from x that contained attachment y you can't remember the name of).

Outlook has a different philosophy of working with data (sort instead of search) and I've noticed more than once that some people refuse to make that mental switch.

What's happening here is consistency - our nearly obsessive desire to be (and appear to be) consistent with what we have already done. Once we've made a choice, we encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Usura sung a great song once. It was called "Open your mind".

So you're saying that when you don't have a suitable search term, you can sort a really long list of messages in such a way that scrolling through the whole thing is an efficient use of your time? Or is that even when you do have a suitable search term?

I'm saying that others' reality isn't always like mine. That there are many ways to skin a cat. That every point has a counterpoint and when I get an email from someone called Diue Donne or something which I always misspell that it's easier to soft by sender, hit D and scroll for a bit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com