Re: Poll: personal convenience vs. global improvement of docs
On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 09:06:25PM EDT, Derek Martin wrote:
> On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 07:50:33PM -0400, cga2000 wrote:
> > 1. I have no problem with variable name changes as long as a reliable
> > conversion script is provided together with the new release.
> >
> > 2. After one month doing my mail in mutt with its "stagnant".. "user
> > unfriendly".. etc. interface I estimate my increase in productivity to
> > over 300%.. How do I know.. well, I spend about one-third of the time
> > doing mail as compared to when I used mozilla-mail.. Not to mention that
> > I can do *everything* basic with one keystroke and use vim as my
> > editor..
>
> I totally agree with this point; which is why I petition so hard for
> mutt to continue improving, instead of wandering off and using one of
> those other mailers. Mutt makes me more productive. But still, there
> are A LOT of ways mutt could still suck less.
.. and borrowing stuff like popups from the complicated world of GUI's
is not one of them..
>
> > 3. I don't support the idea of a configuration tool or a GUI version of
> > mutt.
>
> WHY? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?!?
>
> What should it matter to you if mutt has those features, if you need
> not use them? How can it possibly bother you? People often say this,
> but no one has (as far as I can see) ever made a single plausible
> argument against doing it.
"Mutt is a small but very powerful text-based mail client.."
- from http://www.mutt.org
With these added features, it might remain powerful.. but would lose
the smallness.. and the text-based-ness.. So we're no longer talking
about mutt but a different project.
>
> > For those who need this kind of thing there are at least half a
> > dozen mature products on the market already. And they do SMTP too..! ;-)
>
> They are not mutt, as you have yourself already pointed out, in this
> very message!
.. mutt with these added features would no longer be mutt - see the
quote above.
> The point of doing this is that mutt would have those nice features
> which make it easier and more friendly to use, WITHOUT sacrificing all
> the power which makes mutt let me be more productive.
what can be nicer and easier than typing 'm' to mail, 'r' to reply, 'd'
to delete, 'q' to quit?
> If you don't want them, you can choose not use them, or even configure
> mutt without them, so they can't possibly impact your use of mutt.
there's no such thing as a free lunch.
adding such features would complicate the configure process.. hence make
it more fragile.. I use debian and a .deb that does not include them
might not be available.. so I'd have to make my own.. or just ignore the
added bloat that I have no use for.. this would obviously use additional
resources.. introduce bugs.. and since it's in the same code bucket some
might impact me even if I didn't use the features.. it would probably
add library dependencies.. potential for additional headaches.. all this
added stuff would probably cause mutt to take (much?) longer to load..
.. if I knew mutt a little better, I could probably come up with a
thousand other "good" reasons..
I do not see configuring mutt as such a major hurdle. I for one, did not
encounter any difficulties. From what I have seen, what really makes
mutt so different from the GUI mailers I have used is its advanced
configuration capabilities..
That's how I understand the word "powerful" in the quote above. As I see
it, *this* is the major hurdle: reaching an in-depth understanding of
electronic mail sufficient to unleash the power of mutt. I cannot
believe that anyone who can jump over this particular hurdle would have
*any* problem sitting down with the mutt manual and coming up fairly
rapidly with a .muttrc that does exactly what he wants.. And I don't
think even the best configuration tool would make it any easier.. quite
the contrary, imho.. instead of seeing at a glance all his customization
such an enlightened user would have to access a bunch of options and
submenus and memorize what he sees in each of them to get the whole
picture. GUI hell I call it.
> Why deny them to users who do want them?
.. well see above my clumsy and very uneducated attempt at providing
some form of rational explanation.. There is no way anyone with about
one month experience of mutt can come up with convincing arguments one
way or the other. The point I am making is that there is such a thing
as a mutt novice who has no problem with editing his .muttrc - and was
able to do so with some degree of success - and finds the current
interface a pleasure to work with. I initially missed the traditional
three-pane ala Windows presentation - the folders, the list of messages
and the preview pane.. see the "split-screen" thread I initiated..
well, after a couple of days I found that I had been misguided and I
did not need it at all.. I just needed to drop a bad habit acquired in
the GUI world.
The reason I jumped in was just to testify to the fact that *some* new
users at least may not want anything to do with the so-called
user-friendliness of the GUI model that may initially give you the false
impression that things are not that hard after all but soon entraps you
in a maze of dialogs, menus, and popups, that eventually make life a lot
more difficult for the would-be power user.
Thanks,
cga