RE: smtp crap

[Drew Adams]

> > 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.

We had a better solution before.  Why should the default be changed to something
worse, just because you don't have something better?

What improvement is represented by this annoyance and error-prone user
interaction?  It's pretty clear what the loss is.  What's the gain?  I haven't
heard one argument (reason) in support of the changed behavior.

> And for Emacs-24 we won't have a better solution so it
> will be the default.

Poor Emacs.  Maybe Emacs 24 should wait until you can "configure" a sane UI for
bug reporting.

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

Seems satisfactory enough on Windows.  Did any Windows user complain about it
and ask that we move to the present situation?  Why not do what Eli suggested,
as a compromise (while waiting for your "better solution")?

Workaround?  Did you say "workaround"?  What do you call the present kludge?

> > 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?

Here's the patch: Revert to what we had before.

What we have now is no improvement.  Have we heard from anyone who has mentioned
how this change has improved their life?  Did any users even request this
change?

> > Nowadays especially, users already have email configured on 
> > whatever devices they use.
> 
> Yes, e.g. configured on Emacs.

What does that mean?

> > 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.

OK, blame it on SMTP and sendmail.  Email worked or failed reliably ... back in
the 1980s (mostly worked, and well).  But nowadays, because things are so much
more advanced and complex, we need to alert Emacs users whenever they try to
submit a bug report, notifying them that we don't really know what mail
configuration they want, and asking them to tell us.  Sheesh.

"Workaround"?!?   Please, find a junior high-school kid to implement a sane
Emacs bug-reporting UI for next weekend's take-home project.  Sending a bug
report was NOT broken.  Now it is.