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I disagree that email should be plain text, but honestly I don't think that's really relevant to the question. I read the question as "why CLI instead of GUI",

by bigstrat2003 2y ago

I disagree that email should be plain text, but honestly I don't think that's really relevant to the question. I read the question as "why CLI instead of GUI", which I think is totally fair. Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit.

BeetleB 2y ago
> Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit. Eh? I used to use mutt and now use notmuch. Much simpler to use than, say, Outlook. Not sure what you're talking about being "harder".
- leephillips 2y ago
  Absolutely right. Every GUI email client that I’ve tried is clumsy and slow. Mutt is elegant, powerful, and fast. https://lwn.net/Articles/837960/ https://lwn.net/Articles/837960/
OJFord 2y ago
It just depends on the user. You probably also think cd & ls is so much harder than Finder or whatever.
broken-kebab 2y ago
I think it's not the question. One can continue using GUI, and value CLI for its flexibility. E.g. if I'd like to script some routine task, availability of a CLI tools will make it a breath. In the average case of GUI it's either impossible altogether, or requires some ugly user input simulation. Which is like using your feet to open jars - to borrow your comparison
goku12 2y ago
As another commenter pointed out, CLI/TUI isn't that hard. In many cases it's easier than GUI ones. But I have a different purpose. I can configure different pieces (imap for incoming, smtp for outgoing, notmuch & afew for tagging and search, etc) and use it uniformly from a variety of different programs including git and emacs. Not very simple, I must admit. But it's a personal choice. It works very well for my use cases, including realtime full mail backup and offline use.

BeetleB 2y ago

> Using a CLI email client instead of a GUI strikes me like using your feet to open jars - maybe you can do it, but it's so much harder for no benefit. Eh? I used to use mutt and now use notmuch. Much simpler to use than, say, Outlook. Not sure what you're talking about being "harder".

leephillips 2y ago
Absolutely right. Every GUI email client that I’ve tried is clumsy and slow. Mutt is elegant, powerful, and fast. https://lwn.net/Articles/837960/ https://lwn.net/Articles/837960/

OJFord 2y ago

It just depends on the user. You probably also think cd & ls is so much harder than Finder or whatever.

broken-kebab 2y ago

I think it's not the question. One can continue using GUI, and value CLI for its flexibility. E.g. if I'd like to script some routine task, availability of a CLI tools will make it a breath. In the average case of GUI it's either impossible altogether, or requires some ugly user input simulation. Which is like using your feet to open jars - to borrow your comparison

goku12 2y ago

As another commenter pointed out, CLI/TUI isn't that hard. In many cases it's easier than GUI ones. But I have a different purpose. I can configure different pieces (imap for incoming, smtp for outgoing, notmuch & afew for tagging and search, etc) and use it uniformly from a variety of different programs including git and emacs. Not very simple, I must admit. But it's a personal choice. It works very well for my use cases, including realtime full mail backup and offline use.