clive@druhi.UUCP (03/05/87)
I'd like to ask the community, as individuals, to do a little
self-questioning about the treatment, as only one example, that the mail
withdrawal issue has had.
To me, personally speaking, this seems to have been:
a) Open derision for the person who first brought the issue up --
why, because a 'user' had the temerity to ask for something
natural, rational, and convenient, which only shortsightnedness
in Unix utilities design might have made difficult to implement?
(Granted, of course, their age, and that it *is* difficult to
forsee everything a future might consider...)
b) Varying degrees of snide, sarcastic, sophomoric, and unctuous
replies in Email and on the net to suggestions that this
should and could be provided.
Particularly impolite, was the rather olympian detachment presumed
by certain parties, and the oh-so-careful 'if you don't know, we
certainly couldn't tell you, or even reply' attitude.
I can't imagine any form of treatment more likely to stifle creativity.
And apologize completely to those few who wrote interested comments and ideas.
I might put these observations on a ground by allowing that I
have roughly 20 years experience in various forms of electronics
and computer engineering. My current consulting work has been to
provide a natural language testing enviroment for a particular type of
large, mostly software, systems. It works. I've had enough to do with
Unix over the years, including kernel code, though haven't noticed this
anointing me with anything more than one more set of familiarity to use
in getting something someone else actually needs, done. I'm sure I, or
anyone else, will never know everything there is to know about it.
There are more pleasant and interesting things in life.
Clive Steward
P.S. Grue is a laughing term of self-denigration I often use when
people put me in the position of relative omnipotence because I might
be aware of a few facts they haven't found out yet. Or to remind myself,
when the temptation comes, against climbing on the high horse all alone.
Its mythic meaning is appropriate. Have a good day.guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris) (03/05/87)
> a) Open derision for the person who first brought the issue up -- > why, because a 'user' had the temerity to ask for something > natural, rational, and convenient, which only shortsightnedness > in Unix utilities design might have made difficult to implement? The point raised by several people in the discussion was that it was *N*O*T* just "shortsightedness in UNIX utility design" that made it difficult to withdraw mail. At our site, a large number of users have their own machines, which means the "unmail" command would have to work over the network; you can't make this secure without a secure way of determining whether a request coming from over the network has been authorized by the person it purports to come from, and this is non-trivial. The analogies used to claim that this was "natural, rational, and convenient" also were flawed; you can't say "well, I can do this with the US mail" because you can't, in general. And, finally, the "unmail" command would only work if the mail message was still sitting unread in the recipient's mailbox. It's *not* the best solution to the problem - the best solution to the problem would be to delay the submission of the message to the mail delivery system (either by queueing it, or not sending it in the first place) until you're sure you want it to go out. (I don't think "unmail" commands are very common; this may very well be because all the mail system implementors out there are grues, but it may also be because the idea isn't very good.) The point is that not all ideas are created equal; many of them are to a greater or lesser degree bogus. If people don't like having bogosity pointed out to them, that's their problem. A definite aid to useful creativity is to weed out bogus ideas early, so you can spend time on the good ideas.
clive@druhi.UUCP (Clive Steward) (03/06/87)
in article <14548@sun.uucp>, guy@gorodish.UUCP says: ... partial requote > The point raised by several people in the discussion was that it was > *N*O*T* just "shortsightedness in UNIX utility design" that made it > difficult to withdraw mail. Guy, you're one of the people who generally writes respectfully and respectably here. But please don't quote out of context. The sentence following the one about shortsightedness expresses exactly that it's kind of difficult to anticipate what people are going to want in an indefinite future. That's the point. We have to keep making Unix better. > ... At our site, a large number of users > have their own machines, which means the "unmail" command would have > to work over the network; you can't make this secure without a secure > way of determining whether a request coming from over the network has > been authorized by the person it purports to come from, and this is > non-trivial. But a fairly trivial-to-implement suggestion was made for this, in my previous, referenced article. Right or wrong. Maybe they arrived out of order at your site? > > The analogies used to claim that this was "natural, rational, and > convenient" also were flawed; you can't say "well, I can do this with > the US mail" because you can't, in general. > I don't know why 'naturalness' should be interpreted to apply to postal service mail. We don't have undo on our pens, but we sure like it on editors. The reason is obvious -- a quick, wrong or reflexive keystroke can bring disaster without obvious recourse. So we make a way to back out. > And, finally, the "unmail" command would only work if the mail > message was still sitting unread in the recipient's mailbox. It's > *not* the best solution to the problem - the best solution to the > problem would be to delay the submission of the message to the mail > delivery system (either by queueing it, or not sending it in the > first place) until you're sure you want it to go out. (I don't think > Again, let's look at the paradigm of netnews. Cancel does get used; it's the human interface issue again of making disasters easy. No walk to the postbox to have second thoughts. > The point is that not all ideas are created equal; many of them are > to a greater or lesser degree bogus. If people don't like having > bogosity pointed out to them, that's their problem. A definite aid > to useful creativity is to weed out bogus ideas early, so you can > spend time on the good ideas. Not so much disagreement here; it's the manner, not the opinions themselves, that irks me. And this communication, by manner, is far more powerful in any human interaction than what we choose to call objective facts. Said kindly, an insight can lead to newer, better ideas. As a remonstration, it serves (as I believe is its emotionally intended purpose), to shut up the source of irritation that any non-standard thought is. Thanks for your opinions, by the way, and I do mean it. Clive