What is the exact difference between saying something like "Joe sat at the cafe by himself." and "Joe was sitting at the cafe by himself" Both to me indicate some sort of past tense, but I can feel some underlying difference between them. I'm looking for a very full explanation here, this is something I'm curious in as a full blown grammatical explanation.
The first is simple past tense. The second is past progressive. There is a lot of info on the internet for both; google the difference.
