ROTD (Rant Of The Day): patches

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

Guys,

I've come to _hate_ diffs attached as Application/OCTET-STREAM. Can you
please, Please, PLEASE, attach them as Text/PLAIN?

I use Pine over a ssh connection to read wine-{devel,patches}, and I can
simply view the Text/PLAIN attachments, whereas I have to:
  -- press V to view the list of attachments
  -- select the attachment I want to view
  -- press S to save it to disk
  -- exit Pine
  -- start vi to actually view the thing
  -- restart pine...
Just to view a Application/OCTET-STREAM attachment.

Which means 2 things:
  -- I get frustrated (and look what happens when I do:))
  -- I simply ignore those patches

For all these reasons (and more), I think Linus is right when he insists on:
  -- ONE patch per email
  -- ONLY Text/PLAIN attachments.

--
Dimi.

[Francois Gouget]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> Guys,
>
> I've come to _hate_ diffs attached as Application/OCTET-STREAM. Can you
> please, Please, PLEASE, attach them as Text/PLAIN?

Another issue which is dear to Alexandre :-)

When I send a patch with netscape and then read the email in pine, I
see the email and the attachement right below it. When I send a patch
with pine, I have to use V, select the attachement and pine forks an
external pager (more/less/whatever).  That's fine too but slightly less
practical.
   I am not sure what is the difference between the two. I believe it
has to do with one being a MIME attachement while the other would
be... I don't know what.
   And Alexandre once said he would like it if my attachements were
more readily accessible (in emacs).

So if anyone has tips for configuring pine so that it makes nicer
attachements...

--
Francois Gouget         [e-mail]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
        It really galls me that most of the computer power in the world
                          is wasted on screen savers.
                     Chris Caldwell from the GIMPS project
                       http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Francois Gouget wrote:
> Another issue which is dear to Alexandre :-)

I wonder why?... :)
> When I send a patch with netscape and then read the email in pine, I
> see the email and the attachement right below it. When I send a patch
> with pine, I have to use V, select the attachement and pine forks an
> external pager (more/less/whatever).  That's fine too but slightly less
> practical.

BTW, how do you fork the external pager?
> So if anyone has tips for configuring pine so that it makes nicer
> attachements...

Me too! :) That is, I would like to know as well.

I guess you can insert the patch in the body of the message using:
  ^R - from Pico to "Read File"
or
  ^_ - to go to the alternate editor (vi) and do the dirty deed in there.

--
Dimi.

[Francois Gouget]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
[...]
> BTW, how do you fork the external pager?

I just do '>', select the attachement and 'V'. I don't think I have
any specific option.

[...]
> Me too! :) That is, I would like to know as well.
>
> I guess you can insert the patch in the body of the message using:
>   ^R - from Pico to "Read File"

Maybe I'll try that. it should tae care of botht the MIME and base64
issues. Putting a patch directly inline worries me though.

--
Francois Gouget         [e-mail]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
     Linux, WinNT, MS-DOS - also known as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

[Alexandre Julliard]

"Dimitrie O. Paun"  writes:
> For all these reasons (and more), I think Linus is right when he insists on:
>   -- ONE patch per email
>   -- ONLY Text/PLAIN attachments.

I can't say I disagree with you, but I'll just note that all your
patches are base64 encoded, which is not really better <g>

IMO any mail that cannot be piped straight into patch should be
rejected; but I don't do it because it would take me more time to
explain that to people sending patches and keep track of it all than
it takes me to decode them. Maybe we should put an auto-rejecter of
mime crap on the wine-patches list..

[Eric Pouech]

> Maybe we should put an auto-rejecter of
> mime crap on the wine-patches list..

or an automatic converter/inliner...

A+

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Alexandre Julliard wrote:
> I can't say I disagree with you, but I'll just note that all your
> patches are base64 encoded, which is not really better <g>

Oops <blush/> (but, ..., but, ... mine are Text/PLAIN at least :))

Sorry, I did not realise that. Speaking of which, I don't have the
slightest idea how to force Pine not to do that. Maybe the only way is to
actually _insert_ the text of the patch at the end of the message, but as
far as I know, there are some broken versions of Pine out that will mangle
the patch in sublte ways.
> IMO any mail that cannot be piped straight into patch should be rejected

Agreed. I am sorry I caused you grief by sending you base64 patches, from
my mailer POV they seemed to be "in clear".
> but I don't do it because it would take me more time to
> explain that to people sending patches and keep track of it all than
> it takes me to decode them. Maybe we should put an auto-rejecter of
> mime crap on the wine-patches list..

Yeah, that would be good. Maybe include something into the documentation
describing how to send the patch using various mailers?

--
Dimi.

[Joerg Mayer]

Hmm, looks like after the failed attempt for a flame war on version numbering,
you are trying to start one on mail clients 8-=)

On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:52:19PM -0500, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> I've come to _hate_ diffs attached as Application/OCTET-STREAM. Can you
> please, Please, PLEASE, attach them as Text/PLAIN?

I'd like to see properly labeled attachment types too, be they text/plain,
mime, gzip or whatever.
> I use Pine over a ssh connection to read wine-{devel,patches}, and I can
> simply view the Text/PLAIN attachments, whereas I have to:

Hmm, the problem you mentioned is one of the two major reasons that drove
me away from pine towards mutt. I'm now running a (n almost) properly
configured mutt and don't have these problems any more because app/o-s
are just viewed with the text viewer after  pressing v and selecting the
attachment (which takes maybe 2 seconds). I don't like your idea of
1 patch per mail, as this would probably take me 2-3 additional seconds
per mail (poor me).

ciao
          Jörg

--
Joerg Mayer                                          
I found out that "pro" means "instead of" (as in proconsul). Now I know
what proactive means.

[Michael Stefaniuc]

On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:52:19PM -0500, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> I've come to _hate_ diffs attached as Application/OCTET-STREAM. Can you
> please, Please, PLEASE, attach them as Text/PLAIN?
>
> I use Pine over a ssh connection to read wine-{devel,patches}, and I can

Use a better mailer like mutt ;) ?
> simply view the Text/PLAIN attachments, whereas I have to:
>   -- press V to view the list of attachments
>   -- select the attachment I want to view
>   -- press S to save it to disk

This is what have todo with mutt too, but I don't have to save. I press
<Enter> to display the message. mutt complains about not having an
appropiate method for the mime type and displays it in it's internal
pager. I suspect this should work in pine too.
> -- exit Pine
>   -- start vi to actually view the thing
>   -- restart pine...

Uuuh ... this is like rebooting. Has pine a "pipe" function (it's long
ago when I saw The Light and switched to mutt)? That's what i do in mutt
wenn I get an gzip'ed patch: go to the list of attachments, select the
attachment and pipe it through zless. So no need to leave the mailer.
> Just to view a Application/OCTET-STREAM attachment.

They don't annoy me too much, but the extra key strokes I need to view
them will get me the carpal tunnel syndrome.

bye
    michael

P.S.: sorry, couldn't resist
> Which means 2 things:
>   -- I get frustrated (and look what happens when I do:))
>   -- I simply ignore those patches
>
> For all these reasons (and more), I think Linus is right when he insists on:
>   -- ONE patch per email
>   -- ONLY Text/PLAIN attachments.