Re: [Nmh-workers] Holes (was: nmh in near, medium, and far-term)

[Joel Uckelman]

Thus spake Jon Steinhart:
> > > You know, unless I'm missing something, the holes in our messages
> > > numbers could be considered a bug.
> 
> This is absolutely not a bug; it's part of a good user interface.  It
> means that once you know the number of a message you can do things to
> it without having to constantly re-scan or re-pick to find it.
> Repeatability and habituation are important elements of user interface
> design that many seem to not have learned.
>

I frequently use nmh exactly this way: I have a scan in one terminal,
and refer to the message numbers in it while working in another
terminal. If messages were renumbered every time I refiled one, I
would be constantly re-scanning instead of dealing with my mail.

-- 
J.