Re: Sending attachments

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>     Use message-mode.
>
> There was no reason to add Message mode to Emacs at all.
> Someone decided to write a duplicate mode instead of
> improving the one we had, and snuck it into Emacs without
> submitting the decision to discussion.

I agree, there shouldn't be this duplication, and we should try to fix
it -- but since message-mode has much more functionality (which is
widely used and important), we can't just get rid of message-mode.
Thus we should merge the two modes.

Since message-mode is mostly a superset of mail-mode, then
_technically_ it seems pretty likely that the safest and quickest way
to accomplish this merge would be to adopt message-mode (after fixing
any problems with message-mode, and with whatever other changes are
necessary to help mail-mode users).

I realize that the whole mess annoys you (me too), and that to some
degree it's message-mode that's "at fault" -- but we also need to
think about the technical issues, developer time, and our users.

Message-mode wasn't created or merged maliciously.  Let's just let
the past be the past, and try to do the best thing for Emacs and its
users, and merge the two modes into one.  If the name "mail-mode" is
preferred, then message-mode can be renamed (with appropriate
compatibility hooks for existing users of message-mode).

Do you have any technical (UI/interfaces/functionality/code-quality/etc)
objections to message-mode?  Is the code ugly?  Does it not work well
with rmail?  Do you not like the name?

Thanks,

-Miles

-- 
`Life is a boundless sea of bitterness'