Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!philmtl!ray From: ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm Subject: Re: A basic Wish List Message-ID: <1099@philmtl.philips.ca> Date: 5 Mar 90 21:06:13 GMT References: <1066@philmtl.philips.ca> <5644@ists.ists.ca> <6319@orca.wv.tek.com> <5727@ists.ists.ca> <3302-82ggpc2@ficc.uu.net> Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. Product Group PC. Montreal. Lines: 47 In referenced article, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <5727@ists.ists.ca> eric@ists.ists.ca (Eric M. Carroll) writes: >> Lets users deal with what they know best - content. Give the experts a >> way to fiddle with the process if they need it (edit headers >> seperately). Never inflict expert level content and process on a novice, > >And never inflict novice-level content and process on an expert. Amen. > The header >editor screen is strictly novice-level. Instead, dump the headers into a >file and call the expert's favorite editor on them. Why to a separate file? An option which gives the headers as part of the text of the reply being edited gives the best flexibility. If separated, there is still the problem of copying information between them. Certainly retain the current invisibility of the headers for the novices, but why constrain the expert? >>As a fundamental principle of software engineering, I believe in fixing >>the broken software instead of breaking everything else to accomodate >>the bug. All vey motherhood and apple-pie, but what is the relevance to the discussion? Doesn't elm already allow you to edit the headers? The suggestion is only that it be done in a more consistent, useful way. In what way does this "break everything else"? It's ironic that the very first time I used elm to 'r'eply to mail, the mail bounced because the address needed fixed up. Until all the mail software out there that has a distorted view on life is fixed, I need the tools to easily repair their broken attempts at paths: and from: lines. Even uunet adds "uunet!" to every address it sees in the header, often totally inappropriately. >>Users care about CONTENT >>not PROCESS. They give not one whit about HOW it happened, just that it did. Until things start going wrong..... -- Ray Dunn. | UUCP: ray@philmtl.philips.ca Philips Electronics Ltd. | ..!{uunet|philapd|philabs}!philmtl!ray 600 Dr Frederik Philips Blvd | TEL : (514) 744-8200 Ext : 2347 (Phonemail) St Laurent. Quebec. H4M 2S9 | FAX : (514) 744-6455 TLX : 05-824090