Slashdot Mirror
The Perfect Email Client?
An anonymous reader sends: "Can those who review also design? Trying to practice what it preaches, CNET published this article, a description of the perfect e-mail client. Next up, apparently: hardware and electronics designs."
Hear, hear!
The GUI email clients I've used of late are all over-bloated already, and getting worse with each revision! There's a lot to be said for a GUI client vs a command line (text) client, but there are trade-offs, and severe bloat comes with every cute little "wish-list" items that gets added. That said, I'm never going to give up my GUI email client, but TRIM THE BLOAT!
I think the main causes of bloat are these:
1) Developers just "throwing shit together" in an attempt to keep ahead (or catch up with) of the competition.
2) GUI bloat. GUI's make for bigger apps anyway, but add on 3rd pary libraries that distance the programmer from the API, then throw a bunch of "Gee, whiz!" gooie trash (skins, a plethora of icons, smilies, etc) on top...
3) Poor object oriented programming methods. Woo, I'll prolly get flamed for this, but OOP doesn't automatically make your app better or even help you (the programmer) do a better job. The only thing that I can guarantee is your code will ALWAYS compile slower, USUALLY run slower, USUALLY bloat up like a dead pup. Not all the "fault" of OOP, but of some programming practices it may engender. OOP (C++ esp) is *great* but, as with any language, you've got to know what you're doing with it! IMO, C++ in the hands of a neophyte or run-of-the-mill CS grad is bloat and inefficiency looking for a place to happen.
Back to email clients & such: I think the best approach to (a) adding any/every cool idea possible, and (b) preventing bloat would be to partition the app into smaller chunks.
Like all the myriad utilities from the Un*x world, keep all the little features in seperate programs that could work with the main app thru an API and shared libraries. When I say "little features" I mean *make them little!*
Ah, crap. I'm gonna have to stop, cause my Rant-O-meter just pegged. I really do have a problem with code/app bloat and wish the major developers would do *something* to combat the issue, but I'm afraid it must be a non-issue to the hordes of Joe Schmoes who just got their PC a WalMart.
-
I would not mind people sending me email using Outlook if it only did a few things:
/below/ the quoted text so they would respond there (instead of above)
/basic/ email standards, I respond to most people that send me mail using Outlook with the first line starting something like this:
1) set References and In-Reply-To properly, so I could thread them in my mailer
2) not let them send mail greater than 78 chars wide
3) when replying, would use chevrons ( > symbol) and put the cursor
Until Outlook stops violating these
begin super_secret_message.doc
which totally f*cks up outlook and makes the email look like a UUencoded attachment that cannot be opened in Word...ha ha
Try mutt. It's truly free (unlike pine) and it comes loaded to the gills with features. Features which are actually usable, unlike Outhouse.
Fetchmail to retrieve the mail, procmail to filter it and mutt to read it: a beautiful combination. There's no real reason to use GUI mail--I do enough remote access that it's easier to learn the CLI client once and for all time.