Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bbn!gateway!THEORY.LCS.MIT.EDU!bard From: bard@THEORY.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: making GNU Emacs talk SMTP Message-ID: <8903060031.AA03566@toucan.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 6 Mar 89 00:31:02 GMT References: Sender: news@bbn.COM Organization: BBN news/mail gateway Lines: 16 > It would be nice if GNU Emacs, when used as a mail user agent, would > send mail by talking SMTP to a mail server instead of just invoking a > local `sendmail'. Why? (Intended as a question rather than a flame.) One advantage of the sendmail approach is that it is fairly asynchronous. (Actually, I haven't looked at the code so this is just a guess.) Emacs can give the letter to sendmail and then forget about it. The sendmail runs in parallel, sending the letter to all the 82 people I've mailed my letter to; I can continue to edit my thesis without waiting for the letter to get delivered. If it were all done in emacs (which is a synchronous critter in general), I'd have to wait. -- Bard the emacs gargoyle