From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim Cross Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function' Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 10:07:14 +1000 Message-ID: References: <4E1B16B3.1070209@cornell.edu> <4E386CFC.8030304@cornell.edu> <4E3AB9C6.5090001@cornell.edu> <4E3B15B0.5030107@cornell.edu> <4E3D890C.50301@cornell.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1312675650 11755 80.91.229.12 (7 Aug 2011 00:07:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 00:07:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Stefan Monnier , Ken Brown , "emacs-devel@gnu.org" To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Aug 07 02:07:26 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Qpqtp-0006CV-SM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Aug 2011 02:07:26 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33511 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qpqtp-0006jg-8Y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:07:25 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:44607) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qpqtj-0006jQ-O2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:07:23 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qpqtf-0005jO-P5 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:07:19 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-iy0-f175.google.com ([209.85.210.175]:57572) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qpqtf-0005jI-J8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:07:15 -0400 Original-Received: by iyn15 with SMTP id 15so4602158iyn.6 for ; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:07:14 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=awGlXLyxwCpjR3+7j6eEWGKTM+zfk8N/R34T5fi05Rs=; b=VBEjH4s7lrT/VDdgePSpRO7q005ZCRHGhdb8QKbWKgYTXnS2bSiGK3eWiP55QkEIaK y9KnXCwwM4hg30I5cSfXo3b6gm/ehzKgkxdFjOSYXShPjmTWR8NbVENy1FzgAMzkwUmT RVTIohYPeKNXsKYuNub1R9sjfNP4bLuGHvnzY= Original-Received: by 10.231.63.70 with SMTP id a6mr2308009ibi.66.1312675634848; Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:07:14 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.231.15.12 with HTTP; Sat, 6 Aug 2011 17:07:14 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.210.175 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:142951 Archived-At: On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wr= ote: > Ken Brown writes: > >> After all, we're targeting users who are trying to use emacs to send >> mail but have not configured it. =A0I would guess that the most common >> case for this is sending a bug report. > > No, I think the most common case is people sending email from Emacs 24 > for the first time, and who want to continue doing that. > You are talking outside of report-emacs-bug yes? If so, I would agree that most people who try to send mail other than a bug report are likely to want to continue sending mail via emacs, if only for a short period to try it out. However, what proportion of all emacs users these users are is unknown. Ken's comment to perhaps treat emacs-bug-report completely separately is probably correct. Have it default to mailclient if no other mail settings have been made. What we want to avoid is the user having to go through any significant additional configuration steps to send a bug report. For other areas, they are configuring mail, so asking them to do configuration work/decisions would be reasonable and if they never want to use emacs for mail, they will never get bothered. Whatever the default selected, it needs to add value to the largest group of users possible. >> Mailclient has the advantage that it should just work OOTB for most >> people, without any configuration. > > Well, I'm not sure how true that is. =A0(The "most people" part...) =A0I > certainly don't have any other mail client set up reachable by > mailclient.el. =A0:-) > What platform are you on and what percentage of the user base do you think it would represent? This is the root of the problem. We all have different opinions about the user base, the most common case etc. To really get the right default for this setting, we need a better understanding of the user base. We need to know what really is the most common user pattern and need to stop guessing based on our own perceptions. This is hard to do. One possible metric we could try would be to analyze the mail headers in some of the emacs related mail lists, such as this one. We would not want to use the bug list as it will likely be somewhat biased towards emacs clients due to report-emacs-bug. However, loooking at the others should give some indication of users who use emacs for general mail and those who don't. Another alternative would be to try and run a survey. However, it is quite difficult to structure good surveys, hard to get people to participate and when you do, those that do answer are rarely a true cross section of users. Tim