pauld@scenic.wa.com (Paul Barton-Davis) (10/22/90)
Jamie Zawinski (on gnu-emacs-sources) posted some elisp code to use abbrevs instead of a .mailrc file. He noted ... ;;; do anything about it. You will never again be screwed because you forgot ;;; to delete an old alias from your .mailrc when a new local user arrives and ;;; is given a userid which conflicts with one of your aliases. ;;; ;;; So delete those .mailrc files right now! I can't believe that people are doing stuff like this. All this effort to automate something that could be fixed by much more minimal attention to detail, and at the same time removing interoperability with existing tools. Is this really what GNU is spawning ? Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@scenic.wa.com> ScenicSoft, Inc. (206) 776-7760 "Industry without art is brutality"
jwz@LUCID.COM (Jamie Zawinski) (10/23/90)
In message <9010221540.AA05018@scenic.scenic.wa.com> Paul Barton-Davis wrote: > > I can't believe that people are doing stuff like this. All this effort > to automate something that could be fixed by much more minimal attention > to detail, and at the same time removing interoperability with existing > tools. Is this really what GNU is spawning ? 1: It is not uncommon to invest a nontrivial amount of time in a program that will save a user a small amount of time / need for attention to detail. 2: In this particular case, the amount of time invested was hardly nontrivial. 3: I do not consider compatibility with existing tools which are BAD tools to necessarily be a desirable thing, especially when such compatibility would damage the functionality of the new tool. 4: I doubt gnu-emacs-announce is the right place for you to have CCed your flame. -- Jamie
pauld@scenic.wa.com (Paul Barton-Davis) (10/23/90)
Jamie - my "flame" was not intended to be a *personal* attack. I entirely appreciate that 1: It is not uncommon to invest a nontrivial amount of time in a program that will save a user a small amount of time / need for attention to detail. having done so myself. However, it was intended to note the creeping featurism that elisp code is tending to promote. You posting was just the most blatant example of this that I've seen in a while. 3: I do not consider compatibility with existing tools which are BAD tools to necessarily be a desirable thing, especially when such compatibility would damage the functionality of the new tool. I would dispute that the .*rc file is a BAD tool. Abbrevs weren't meant to replace them, and using them that way is adding to the confusion about "what does program X do when it starts up ?" The reason *why* rc files are a GOOD tool is that they focus the answer to this question on one location, instead of forcing people to ask questions like "well, did you send it from within Emacs or did you use mail(x) ?". 4: I doubt gnu-emacs-announce is the right place for you to have CCed your flame. You're probably right, and it looks like my .mailrc needs checking since I didn't send it there :-) Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@scenic.wa.com> ScenicSoft, Inc. (206) 776-7760 "Industry without art is brutality"
ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) (04/05/91)
Has anyone modified mailalias.el so it can handle aliases with full names, like the alias facility in the elm mailer? The alias file would need a format like joe = Joe Blow = joe@idunno.noplace.edu instead of the ~/.mailrc format, and produce addresses in either of the following formats: Joe Blow <joe@idunno.noplace.edu> joe@idunno.noplace.edu (Joe Blow) Thanks. -- Ronald Florence ron@mlfarm.com
ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (04/05/91)
My alias file contains aliases of the form: joe@idunno.noplace.edu (Joe Blow) which is accepted by mailalias.el as well as mail-abbrevs.el. By the way, I use VM as my mailer. -- Ralph P. Sobek Disclaimer: The above ruminations are my own. ralph@laas.fr Addresses are ordered by importance. ralph@laas.uucp, or ...!uunet!laas!ralph If all else fails, try: sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU =============================================================================== THINK: Due to IMF & World Bank policies 100 million Latin American children are living, eating, and sleeping in the streets -- Le Monde Diplomatique
breen@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Breen Liblong) (04/09/91)
I would also like to know of any attempts to make mailalias.el handle aliases with full names. I'm hacking something together right now to make it work, but I'd appreciate anyone's elisp code where some thought has gone into making it work right. I suspect many others out there are suffering from the same lack of functionality. Please post all reasonable attempts to me, in addition to ron and/or the net. -- Breen M. Liblong <breen@noah.arc.ab.ca> Alberta Research Council Calgary, Alberta Canada
fuchs@t500i0.telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de (Harald Fuchs) (04/10/91)
breen@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Breen Liblong) writes: >I would also like to know of any attempts to make mailalias.el >handle aliases with full names. I'm hacking something together >right now to make it work, but I'd appreciate anyone's elisp code >where some thought has gone into making it work right. No thought, just a quick hack to build-mail-aliases in mailalias.el: ;; Don't lose if no final newline. (goto-char (point-max)) (or (eq (preceding-char) ?\n) (newline)) + ;; Addition: remove full names in parens + (goto-char (point-min)) + (replace-regexp " *([^)]+)" "") + (goto-char (point-min)) -- Harald Fuchs <fuchs@t500e0.telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de>
jsparkes@bwdls49.bnr.ca (Jeff Sparkes) (04/11/91)
In <BREEN.91Apr8174702@skyler.arc.ab.ca> breen@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Breen Liblong) writes: >I would also like to know of any attempts to make mailalias.el >handle aliases with full names. I'm hacking something together >right now to make it work, but I'd appreciate anyone's elisp code >where some thought has gone into making it work right. >I suspect many others out there are suffering from the same lack of >functionality. Please post all reasonable attempts to me, in addition >to ron and/or the net. Well, here's quick hack to use only commas as separators, not white space. It helps, but is far from a good solution.... *** /usr/gnu/lib/emacs/lisp/mailalias.el Wed Jan 9 17:01:44 1991 --- mailalias.el Mon Apr 1 17:28:24 1991 *************** *** 109,115 **** (re-search-forward "^g\\(roup\\|\\)[ \t]+" nil t)) (re-search-forward "[^ \t]+") (let* ((name (buffer-substring (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0))) ! (start (progn (skip-chars-forward " \t") (point)))) (end-of-line) (define-mail-alias name --- 109,115 ---- (re-search-forward "^g\\(roup\\|\\)[ \t]+" nil t)) (re-search-forward "[^ \t]+") (let* ((name (buffer-substring (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0))) ! (start (progn (skip-chars-forward ",") (point)))) (end-of-line) (define-mail-alias name *************** *** 132,138 **** (let (tem) ;; ~/.mailrc contains addresses separated by spaces. ;; mailers should expect addresses separated by commas. ! (while (setq tem (string-match "[^ \t,][ \t,]+" definition tem)) (if (= (match-end 0) (length definition)) (setq definition (substring definition 0 (1+ tem))) (setq definition (concat (substring definition --- 132,138 ---- (let (tem) ;; ~/.mailrc contains addresses separated by spaces. ;; mailers should expect addresses separated by commas. ! (while (setq tem (string-match "[^,][,]+" definition tem)) (if (= (match-end 0) (length definition)) (setq definition (substring definition 0 (1+ tem))) (setq definition (concat (substring definition -- Jeff Sparkes jsparkes@bnr.ca Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa (613)765-2503 Never trust a psychic who hasn't won the lottery. Twice.