Re: DSN [PATCH]

[Joseph Barillari <jbarilla@princeton.edu>]

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>>>>> "SJ" == Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

    SJ> Joseph Barillari <jbarilla@princeton.edu> writes:
    >> I take it that Gnus replicates the functions of sendmail.el in
    >> messsage.el. That being so, shouldn't this patch be applied to
    >> message.el? Gnus uses `message-send-mail-with-sendmail' in
    >> message.el, rather than `sendmail-send-it' in sendmail.el to
    >> actually dispatch the messages, right?

    SJ> Argh, you're right.  Why is this code being duplicated?
    SJ> sendmail.el does some other stuff as well.  Hm.  Ah.  Message
    SJ> was perhaps intended to replace Mail, so it copied the code.
    SJ> However, Mail is still around, so the code ended up being
    SJ> duplicated.  Sigh.  IMHO it would be better if either message
    SJ> called the code in sendmail.el, or if message replaced
    SJ> sendmail stuff.

The code in sendmail.el is responsible for the bare-bones `M-x mail'
command, correct? Then it's certainly reasonable that the code
overlaps. Gnus simply implements a superset of the features of
sendmail.el in message.el. Because Gnus talks to sendmail with
message.el, I think this patch should probably go in message.el.

Regarding the possibility of eliminating duplication, speaking as a
complete outsider to the Gnus/Emacs projects, I think they perform
non-overlapping functions. Sendmail.el implements a bare-bones mail
command, not a general-purpose mail-processing library. It could
conceivably be stripped down even further to simply call the
mail-processing functions in Gnus, but that would require that anyone
who wanted to use the (previously standalone) sendmail.el would have
to install all of Gnus (although it now comes as standard equipment
with Emacs 21, some heathens may delete it).

--Joe


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