Linux and fonts and Firefox and human-factors design

[Paul Lussier]

Neil Joseph Schelly <neil at jenandneil.com> writes:

> I'd just say the ability to change clients is not nearly as relevant as 
> changing my access locations.  I can check my mail from my Treo, my laptop, 
> my desktop, my webmail if I'm on a public terminal, etc. I am always looking 
> at the same mail organized into the same folders by the same server-side 
> scripting.

Aside from the webmail, I can do the same (yes, I've used my Treo to
ssh into my Linux box and read my mail in gnus by connecting to a
running screen session.  And everything was organized into the same
folders as if I was sitting at my desktop :)

> I get the impression that those speaking ill of IMAP in this
> conversation already know all the points that the pro-IMAP people
> are making though and are just pushing buttons.

Not at all.  I know all the pros and cons of IMAP, and am not trying
to sway anyone towards or away from it.  My contention is the original
statement that the use of exclusive use IMAP is an enabler to switch
clients.  That is true if the physical location of your mail doesn't
change and you don't lose access to that location.  What is more
important is how and where your e-mail is stored (locally vs remotely,
open format vs. closed).  As Kevin Clark mentioned, he runs his own
IMAP server, and in that particular case, yes, it definitely enables
you to access e-mail from anywhere and change clients on the fly.

But this is *ONLY* true if YOU control the storage facilities of the
e-mail.  I think it is safe to say that the majority of people
currently on the internet access their e-mail via a server they don't
control (i.e. a work account, ISP, web mail, etc.), and can, at any
time, be cut off from accessing it.  So, at that point, what good does
IMAP do you?  If you switch to a new ISP or job, you e-mail account
stays behind.  So, you now have a decision to make, do you save all
that e-mail locally, or leave it behind?  If you choose to leave it
behind, you could be sacrificing a lot of good information you'd
rather have kept.  If you decide to store it locally, how are you
going to store and access it to mine it for that information that was
worth keeping?

It might be safer to say, that for immediate access from anywhere,
IMAP is the best means of accessing current/important e-mail, but for
long-term access and/or achiving of that e-mail it must be stored in
an easily manipulated format.

> It's a rather silly proposition that someone would really want to
> use screen/pine through cygwin as their primary email client, or at
> least I hope it is.  -N

s/pine/gnus/ and s/cygwin/linux/ and that's *exactly* how I deal with
e-mail every single day and have been for several years now.  And
seriously, I don't see using Cygwin as a major problem.  If I were,
for some reason forced to use a Windows box, the first thing I would
do would be to install Cygwin with screen, emacs, ssh, procmail,
fetchmail, and a few other utilities.  I could, at that point, ssh
into my Windows box and attach to my emacs session running in screen
and read my e-mail.  So, I don't think it either a silly or even a
far-fetched proposition at all.

-- 
Seeya,
Paul