[dev] Fwd: Re: Patch I submitted

[Conor Kerr]

Hi Jan,

> Do you mind telling us where you have this number from? Wild guessing (on
> both sides) about what the users' intentions might be, doesn't help us very
> much here.

It is an estimation, yes, but I'd hardly say it's "wild" guessing since
Outlook [Express], Hotmail, Eudora and Lotus Notes attach images as
content-disposition:attachment.  There are a lot of clients that don't
but these particular ones form the majority of the usage at the minute 
(as far as I can tell from my own experiences/sources of course).

> I personally don't think this case is less probable but again:

How could you reasonably think that?  Just think of the shear weight of
usage of the popular Windoze clients and remember that they don't
support inline attaching of images.

> I don't understand you at all here. You say you would love to see all
> software commiting to standards but want to break this rule for some
> personal reasons in the same sentence.

For practical reasons, not personal ones.  I can't see what's hard to
understand about wanting to be realistic in a case where idealism is
failing?

> What do you think why Microsoft or others are breaking standards?
> Because they think they know what users would like to have (or because
>  it's easier for them implement, but that's another story). Most RFCs
> have seen years but at least months of thorough discussions and
> thoughts.

Yes, and I've said that that's fair enough.  However that doesn't mean
that they should be adhered to blindly with no respect or thought given
to the real situation.  I'm starting to repeat myself now so I'll stop
saying so but you shouldn't close your eyes to practical considerations
just because standards exist which, if all was well, would irradicate
such considerations.

> Btw, if you follow the mailing lists regularly you would know that Eric is
> one of the most patient repliers and usually reads and comments every single
> line of a message where others (like me) already stopped reading long ago.

Well, it's always appreciated when people are patient and considerate in
such a manner.  It was clear though that Eric had not read some of my
post properly, for example giving a situational response to a technical
question.  As I've said I intend no offence to anyone but I have not
been on this list long and therefore have little knowledge of the
posting practices of individuals on this list.  I have to take what I
see at face value until I do.

> You may like it or not but we are at first addicted to standards (while
> trying to handle data breaking these standards) and then to usability,
> though these two don't interfere most of the time. This might be
> programmer's view of things but as long as we don't have a marketing team in
>  the project this probably won't change.

It's quite clear that IMP/Horde is very much a project designed from a
programmers point of view but usability isn't the responsibility of a
marketing department.  Usability is very much the responsibility of
programmers, a fact the ignorance of which has resulted in the mess the
software industry is in today. 

> Standards have their meaning, are (mostly) well thought and ensure proper
> interoperabilitiy between software pieces that are commited to these standards.

That's very nice of you to say but you are clearly missing the point. 
Legal laws/standards are often (I use often lightly!) well conceived but
what would happen if they were applied without regard to circumstance
and practicality?

Okay, the inline display of [supported] images marked as attachments
isn't life or death or in any way critical/important but I must admit to
a bit of losing of respect for anyone that cannot take account of
circumstance.

> I understand that you have a different opinion about this but I think I
> speak for the whole Horde team if I say we can stop this discussion here
> because we won't apply this particular patch.

Well that's your perogative, I just can't respect your decision though.

> Of course this shouldn't stop you to patch your local version if you like
> and to further submit patches that you think make sense.

Since I first encountered IMP I've long wanted to rewrite the entire
user-interface side of things to conform to usability standards... it
appears we are both advocates of standards but I fear that my openness
to practical considerations versus your adherance to policies wouldn't
work in practice, subsequently I have lost any desire to further the IMP
project.

All the best...

Conor

--
Conor Kerr
Amiga Developer, Ceon Ltd., Northern Ireland
www.ceon.net  conor at dev.ceon.net