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<b>Message ID:</b> 1811 <br/>
<b>Date:</b> Thu Jun 10 22:23:39 BST 1999 <br/>
<b>Author:</b> Bob Stewart <br/>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: Order of receiving messges on this list (off-topic) <br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-124865333">At 11:16 AM 6/10/99 -1000, Reece, Tom CPT - 30th Signal Bn wrote:<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt;I have noticed that frequently I receive the reply to a post before I<br/>
&gt;receive the initial post.<br/>
 </span></blockquote> ...<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt;I&#39;m a grad student working on my degree in information systems and when I<br/>
&gt;can&#39;t figure this kind of stuff out it bugs the crap out of me.  Thanks<br/>
&gt;ahead for anyone who can shed some light. <br/>
<br/>
 </span></blockquote>Yeah, this is indeed waaay off topic, but I&#39;ll reply to the list since<br/>
understanding our medium of exchange generally doesn&#39;t hurt.  If this<br/>
provokes any further discussion we shouldn&#39;t abuse a busy, well-focussed,<br/>
well-behaved list.<br/>
<br/>
Email is a lot like real letters.  Order of delivery is not constrained and<br/>
mail handling software makes no attempt to maintain any order.  For<br/>
example, a delivery system may run multiple processes and one may stick on<br/>
a communication failure or a large message and let another with more recent<br/>
messages get ahead.<br/>
<br/>
You can&#39;t see it, but down in the bowels of the Internet the &quot;IP&quot; part of<br/>
&quot;TCP/IP&quot; works the same way.<br/>
<br/>
	Bob</div>