[NCLUG] MUA

Michael Dwyer mdwyer at sixthdimension.com
Thu Feb 14 16:38:29 MST 2002


Tkil wrote:
> >>>>> "Michael" == Michael Dwyer <mdwyer at sixthdimension.com> writes:
> Michael> DIE, EMACS USER!!!  :)
> no comment.  :)

<shrug> I don't install Pico on my machines anymore, just to make life
more difficult for the script kiddies. :)  The funny thing is that one
of them installed his own copy of Pico!  Heh.  
On the other hand, I found a machine around the office that has MS-DOS
4.01 on it -- in the days before EDIT!  I found I still knew enough
about EDLIN to get by...  I'm not sure I could say the same of
/bin/ed...

> Michael> But am I the only one who doesn't want a swiss-army-knife
> Michael> application?
> 
> having individual tools can be a good thing.  when each tool requires
> a different syntax, different assumptions, different quoting rules,
> different key bindings, different file formats, different display
> requirements/configuration ... it gets annoying.

Agreed.  And this is where *cough* Windows -- and even more so, Apple
have it right.  They require that applications adhere to UI standards. 
Now, we're getting there in the Linux world with Gnome and KDE.  And, to
be honest, this is the reason I never gave emacs another chance -- I
tried it six years ago without a cheat sheet, and got SOOOO lost -- it
was nothing like anything I had ever used.  The only reason I got used
to vi was that I had the blue CSU vi cheatsheet (you all know what I'm
talking about, right? ED-03 at
http://www.colostate.edu/services/acns/bulls.html ) and they didn't have
pico on the CS machines.  After a while, I discovered that it was a very
powerful editor, and it remains my favorite.  I'm pretty sure if I had a
similar experience with emacs, I would make the same revelation that
other emacs users have made.  But until then, I'll stay with my
colon-que-bangs, and you can keep your control-meta-splats...  

(Pico... I'm soooo embarassed...)

Its kind of funny, but Word Perfect is in sort of that same boat.  For
people who have trained on it, or have to use it daily, it is the
quickest and most powerful word processor out there.  But for someone
raised on Word, GeoWrite, and ClarisWorks, the commands are downright
arcane...

> Michael> One more quick question: Does anyone who used Elm remember
> Michael> the 'Bounce' command that you could use to do a sort of
> Michael> unconditional forward?  Does anything else have this feature?
> 
> if you mean "forward" in the traditional sense, vm has that.  it also
> has a bounce command that is intended to deal with mail that's been
> bounced to you (e.g., you made a typo in the username, and you want to
> resend the same e-mail to the correct address).

Right, exactly.  Netscape gives me the option of Forward Inline, Quoted
or As an Attachment.  But it doesn't let me just bounce it to another
address unmolested.   I really miss that feature.  Its (obviously) not
one that would make me change from one MUA to another, but it would
certainly be appreciated.

> for that matter, you can edit the headers at any time before you send
> the e-mail, so it's easy to change headers to suit.

Netscape lets you put a reply-to: header on pretty easily, but other
than that... no dice. No way (that I know of) to add
X-ObligatoryWittyStatement: headers.

Bah, I just need to get out there and try some more stuff.  I've gotten
far too set in my ways. :)



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