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Honestly, I can't think of anything I need that Thunderbird doesn't do. IMAP support? Yup, and the offline support works great too. Search got awesome in the ne

by nzmsv 17y ago

Honestly, I can't think of anything I need that Thunderbird doesn't do. IMAP support? Yup, and the offline support works great too. Search got awesome in the new version. Calendar is supported with Lightning, and works well with Google Calendar. Multiple languages and encodings? Also just works. So what if it can also be used by non-technical people? If you want something with more geek cred, set up emacs to do your email. Otherwise just write an extension to Thunderbird that implements whatever functionality it's currently missing. There is no need for more fragmentation.

ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
It's not about usability for non-technical people. It's about focus on developers. Can Thunderbird do syntax highlighting in email? Fuck no. And suggesting that technical people should use emacs is dumb. Seriously dumb.
- scott_s 17y ago
  You're new around here. Please read this: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
    Yeah, I've read it. I've also realized most of it doesn't matter. What points I lose here can be made up x10 in one or two comments agreeing/pushing popular opinion.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      You have mistaken the purpose of the karma system here. It's just a system to encourage civil discussion. Earning back points doesn't matter - points don't matter. Keep up what you're doing and there's a good chance you'll be banned. But you won't know it.
Vivtek 17y ago
It's not all that easy to write an extension. The threshold effort is enormous. So for all practical intents and purposes, I can't define my own mail categories (tags, whatever), and I can't specify a simple script to run when something comes in, and I can't access my mail as a database for bulk processing. I still use Thunderbird, of course, and have for years - but these are the things I periodically try to figure out in it, and I always end up entirely stymied. To the point where I've also seriously considered writing my own email client, if it just exposed its guts to Python or Perl or something.
- nzmsv 17y ago
  I'd still say adding just one feature to an already working client is less work than writing one from the ground up. It's easy to think you can just grab a library to do IMAP. But what about attachments? Encodings? HTML mail? Storage? Search? Remember, all these will need a UI of some sort. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Thunderbird 3.0 has custom tags. OpenOffice eats Thunderbird address books and can do mail merge. The one thing that's left is running a script when a message is received. That is actually a good idea for an extension.

by nzmsv 17y ago

ThinkWriteMute 17y ago

It's not about usability for non-technical people. It's about focus on developers. Can Thunderbird do syntax highlighting in email? Fuck no. And suggesting that technical people should use emacs is dumb. Seriously dumb.

scott_s 17y ago
You're new around here. Please read this: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
  Yeah, I've read it. I've also realized most of it doesn't matter. What points I lose here can be made up x10 in one or two comments agreeing/pushing popular opinion.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    You have mistaken the purpose of the karma system here. It's just a system to encourage civil discussion. Earning back points doesn't matter - points don't matter. Keep up what you're doing and there's a good chance you'll be banned. But you won't know it.

Vivtek 17y ago

It's not all that easy to write an extension. The threshold effort is enormous. So for all practical intents and purposes, I can't define my own mail categories (tags, whatever), and I can't specify a simple script to run when something comes in, and I can't access my mail as a database for bulk processing. I still use Thunderbird, of course, and have for years - but these are the things I periodically try to figure out in it, and I always end up entirely stymied. To the point where I've also seriously considered writing my own email client, if it just exposed its guts to Python or Perl or something.

nzmsv 17y ago
I'd still say adding just one feature to an already working client is less work than writing one from the ground up. It's easy to think you can just grab a library to do IMAP. But what about attachments? Encodings? HTML mail? Storage? Search? Remember, all these will need a UI of some sort. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Thunderbird 3.0 has custom tags. OpenOffice eats Thunderbird address books and can do mail merge. The one thing that's left is running a script when a message is received. That is actually a good idea for an extension.