Re: smtp crap

[Stefan Monnier]

>> > Why does emacs _keep_ asking me if I want to "Set up Emacs 
>> > for sending SMTP mail"?!  I kept answer "n" to this question
>> I can't reproduce this.  The first time I answer "n", it customizes
>> send-mail-function and saves that variable to the init file.  This
>> should prevent the question from recurring.  Could you try to 
>> figure out what's causing that to fail?
> Even if it works flawlessly, this "feature" should _not_ be the default.

As long as we don't have a better solution, yes it should be
the default.  And for Emacs-24 we won't have a better solution so it
will be the default.

mailclient-send-it is not a satisfactory solution, it's a workaround.

> In particular, it is ridiculous that a user trying to send a simple bug report
> with `emacs -Q' has to run through the extra hurdle of this inane, possibly
> confusing, and error-prone dialog ("yes"; edit the `From' line; "n").  I 
> cannot
> believe this silliness has gone on this long already.

Editing the From is indeed a bug that we have to fix before
the release.  Maybe you could submit a patch for it?

> Nowadays especially, users already have email configured on whatever devices
> they use.

Yes, e.g. configured on Emacs.

> Why are we going backward, not forward?  Why is it suddenly important for 
> every
> user to be interrogated (even once!) about configuring email for Emacs?  (How
> did we get by all these years without this annoyance?)

We got by all these years because both SMTP and /usr/sbin/sendmail
actually used to work or fail reliably.  Nowadays byzantine errors are
the rule for them so we need user input to figure out what to do.


        Stefan