Re: Bug tracker breaks rmail-next-same-subject

[Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2008, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> From: Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>
> > These commands have a fundamental problem; they really should be
> > rmail-next-in-thread, rmail-previous-in-thread.
> 
> Threads are not guaranteed to exist in mailing lists, AFAIK.

They're not guaranteed to exist anywhere.
 
> > That's why References: and In-Reply-To: exist.
> 
> You are evidently assuming that everybody uses MUA that preserve
> these headers as they should. The reality is a bit different.

There are loads of broken MUAs; that doesn't change the fact that
they're broken. References: and In-Reply-To: are the primary way of
tracking threads. In the absence of them, you can try to track threads
using subject, but that's never the first option.

If you want to follow a thread, References: and In-Reply-To: are the
way to do that; Subject: may approximate it, but it's never as
accurate.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
you do it.
 -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu