RE: Replying to list
On Thursday, June 22, 2006 5:53 PM -0500, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Seth Goodman wrote:
> > I'd say it's quite a stretch to say that Elm is at the forefront
> > of MUA technology.
>
> But who was talking elm? Last I checked we had references to
> mutt and Thunderbird. Both of which do innovative things with mail
> and both of which, admittedly, have serious warts.
Here was the reference to my old friend Elm earlier in this thread:
On Wednesday, June 21, 2006 8:21 AM -0500, Thibaut Paumard wrote:
> <...>
> I suppose the reason is:
> http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
Here's the piece of that article that got me going:
"
Any reasonable, modern mailer provides this feature. I prefer the Elm
mailer. It has separate "r)eply" and "g)roup-reply" commands. If I want
to reply to the author of a message, I strike the "r" key. If I want to
send a reply to the entire list, I hit "g" instead. Piece 'o cake.
I mention Elm here (and a lot later on) simply because that's the mailer
I use everyday. This sort of support is not unique to Elm Any reasonable
mailer provides it. The Pine mailer, for instance, asks directly, "Reply
to all recipients?" when you use the "r" command. It doesn't get much
easier than that!
"
Having used Elm for many years, I feel a bit guilty bashing it. I don't
think there's anything wrong with pointing out that it is outdated
technology and hardly modern. While it's quite handy if all you have is
a terminal screen to a server halfway across your continent, that's no
longer the way most people run their desktops. Please, I didn't say no
one, just that most use other means.
That is particularly true for anyone operating a Winbloze desktop.
Non-technical end users don't want to memorize keyboard combinations to
drive their MUA. They also don't want to operate their word processors
that way and often choose formatted text and HTML email when plain text
would do. The horse left the barn on those issues long ago and we're
not going to get her back in. If the keyboard shortcut control method
was what people wanted, vi and WordPerfect would be the most popular
combination around. Those were perfectly functional tools (still are).
Though I will probably never forget vi commands 'till the day I die, I
often use graphical text editors and word processors, just like today's
noobs. I'm not even sure why. It's become a habit.
My point is, one size doesn't fit all, and insisting on it won't win us
many converts. If we want to see Linux usage increase to any
significant degree, it is going to come out of the present pool of Win
prisoners. While I can't deny that Mutt on 'doze would solve the list
reply problem, most Win detainees either can't (because they have no
control over what MUA they use) or choose not to use Mutt (because they
don't like dealing with rc files). It's worth noting that Mutt is the
MUA on a diminutive proportion of Win desktops. I'd go further to point
out that anyone running Mutt on a Win desktop is sufficiently clued in
that this discussion doesn't apply to them. Do we really want to erect
a perceived barrier to entry into the Linux world? I don't think that's
in anyone's best interest other than M$.
-- <== broken signature delimiter from brain-dead M$ MUA
Seth Goodman
Win prisoner #8974372
release date: unclear
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