Re: Bug#367200: ITP: libemail-send-perl -- Simply Sending Email
On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 07:58:52PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 19:21 +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > >> The point is that they could if the wanted to. And if they did, it
> > >> would work for _all_ programs, not just particular perl scripts that
> > >> happen to use some obscure perl module to send mails.
>
> T-bird, Evo, Outlook, etc don't figure it out either. They ask
> the user, "What's the name of your ISP's outgoing mail server?"
>
> Here's the relevant question from "reportbug --config"
>
> Do you have a "mail transport agent" (MTA) like Exim, Postfix
> or SSMTP configured on this computer? [y|N|q|?]?
Except, this is _doubling_ a question that was already asked somewhere else,
ie, a bug. The UNIX way of configuring the mail is setting up a binary that
knows how to deliver it as "/usr/sbin/sendmail"; it doesn't matter whether
that binary will do the work itself, run ssh -T foo sendmail, or toss the
mail to a smarthost. The Debian way of configuring stuff is asking the
admin the relevant questions only once, and keeping the config in a shared
place.
Having to configure every single program that happens to send out mail adds
more work to the user. You also are guaranteed that every such program will
ask the questions in a different way, which adds extra confusion.
Cheers and schtuff,
--
1KB // Rule #6: If violence wasn't your last resort,
// you failed to resort to enough of it.
// - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
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