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Debian and Kernel developers have very functional platforms that require little maintenance compared to GitHub & co. Still, email is slow and kludgy. Someone s

Debian and Kernel developers have very functional platforms that require little maintenance compared to GitHub & co. Still, email is slow and kludgy. Someone should reinvent NNTP.

rhizome 9y ago
Why is email slow and kludgy? I don't want to relitigate old threads, but the only way I can see coming to that conclusion is that it's because it puts a person back in control of their attention. What would our workdays look like without Slack notifications?
- geofft 9y ago
  For the Debian BTS and its mailing lists, there's no instant feedback on whether sending a message worked, which means I have to manually poll my inbox for a bit for errors. Every web-based platform gives me a little spinner if needed and then an immediate confirmation that the action was accepted end-to-end and will happen. My email client only tells me that my local MTA has accepted it, which tells me nothing about whether Debian has accepted it, let alone whether the BTS accepted the format of my email, the mailing list thinks I'm subscribed and will pass it on, some spam filter has decided to silently drop my email entirely, etc. So I get less control of my attention with email. If I change a bug status or reply to a comment in GitHub, I can send my message and be done with it. (And I get replies in emails, not via push notifications of any sort.)
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    > there's no instant feedback on whether sending a message worked > So I get less control of my attention with email Exactly what I wanted to reply. There are corner cases where an asynchronous medium forces you to multitask. On top of that, email was is not meant for threaded, group discussion. NNTP was: you can organize groups, access and search past discussions before you joined them, and run a decentralized/distributed service without fiddling with domains, DNS, DKIM... in comparison, email is kludgy.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    My email client only tells me that my local MTA has accepted it, which tells me nothing about whether Debian has accepted it, let alone whether the BTS accepted the format of my email, Is this hard to make reliable? Do other Debian contributors have these problems? I rarely hear of people having to babysit sending email, and by far it most frequently comes from inside my head when I'm mucking about with my server config, but aside from that email just works.
    - geofft 9y ago
      > Is this hard to make reliable? Do other Debian contributors have these problems? My impression is that othrr Debian contributors do one of three things: 1. Use the 'bts' utility, which creates an email message for you in the right format, which adds something resembling client-side validation (with the usual races and uncertainties of client-side validation), and last I checked still depends on your local system being able to send mail as your actual email account 2. Use Debian for so long that the BTS syntax is second nature (this is almost where I am) 3. Not interact with the BTS, at least other than submitting bugs via the 'reportbug' utility GitHub is miles ahead in usability by people who aren't already familiar with the system.

Debian and Kernel developers have very functional platforms that require little maintenance compared to GitHub & co. Still, email is slow and kludgy. Someone should reinvent NNTP.

rhizome 9y ago

Why is email slow and kludgy? I don't want to relitigate old threads, but the only way I can see coming to that conclusion is that it's because it puts a person back in control of their attention. What would our workdays look like without Slack notifications?

geofft 9y ago
For the Debian BTS and its mailing lists, there's no instant feedback on whether sending a message worked, which means I have to manually poll my inbox for a bit for errors. Every web-based platform gives me a little spinner if needed and then an immediate confirmation that the action was accepted end-to-end and will happen. My email client only tells me that my local MTA has accepted it, which tells me nothing about whether Debian has accepted it, let alone whether the BTS accepted the format of my email, the mailing list thinks I'm subscribed and will pass it on, some spam filter has decided to silently drop my email entirely, etc. So I get less control of my attention with email. If I change a bug status or reply to a comment in GitHub, I can send my message and be done with it. (And I get replies in emails, not via push notifications of any sort.)
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > there's no instant feedback on whether sending a message worked > So I get less control of my attention with email Exactly what I wanted to reply. There are corner cases where an asynchronous medium forces you to multitask. On top of that, email was is not meant for threaded, group discussion. NNTP was: you can organize groups, access and search past discussions before you joined them, and run a decentralized/distributed service without fiddling with domains, DNS, DKIM... in comparison, email is kludgy.
- rhizome 9y ago
  My email client only tells me that my local MTA has accepted it, which tells me nothing about whether Debian has accepted it, let alone whether the BTS accepted the format of my email, Is this hard to make reliable? Do other Debian contributors have these problems? I rarely hear of people having to babysit sending email, and by far it most frequently comes from inside my head when I'm mucking about with my server config, but aside from that email just works.
  - geofft 9y ago
    > Is this hard to make reliable? Do other Debian contributors have these problems? My impression is that othrr Debian contributors do one of three things: 1. Use the 'bts' utility, which creates an email message for you in the right format, which adds something resembling client-side validation (with the usual races and uncertainties of client-side validation), and last I checked still depends on your local system being able to send mail as your actual email account 2. Use Debian for so long that the BTS syntax is second nature (this is almost where I am) 3. Not interact with the BTS, at least other than submitting bugs via the 'reportbug' utility GitHub is miles ahead in usability by people who aren't already familiar with the system.