>> From: Charlie Summers <charlie(a)lofcom.com>
>> I honestly don't understand it. Can _anyone_ explain why using a web
>> server to control a mailing list as simple to maintain as SmartList is a
>> "good thing?"
"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
Answer #1: Most of the world works with MUAs that make adding headers
(i.e. lines to the header of messages) needlessly difficult.
Answer #2: Most of the world has a WWW browser that they have come
to use for every sort of task, even when the task is more easily
accomplished via a simple command.
Why? Because they don't have to remember what tasks can be accomplished
or how to do those tasks; they simply choose from the options presented
and the CGI script walks them through the process.
This is the CLI/GUI argument in a nutshell: one provides a simple (?)
method to do (precisely ?) what you want if you can remember how to do
it; the other provides a method of doing (approxminately) what you want
without your having to remember much more than how to get to the starting
point.
At 8:18 AM -0400 7/28/00, Roger Burton West is rumored to have typed:
> It seems a little ironic not to use the smartlist software for
> smartlist's own mailing list!
Yeah. Seems there are two factors at work; 1) the lack of knowledge of
those operating the list servers about how good SmartList _can_ be (possibly
based on the bad experiences from the "abandoned" procmail and SmartList
lists), and 2) the desperate need for software to use the Web for totally
unnecessary things, simply because it's there. (Fortunately, you _can_ change
your mailman settings through email, the way the mailing list gods intended.
I don't know if the admins are aware of this, what being Web-centric and
all...)
Personally, I can't help but think the procmail and SmartList lists should
be removed from rwth-aachen.de anyway, since it's pretty obvious they have
nothing whatsoever to do with the programs anymore, anyway.
Charlie (who's terribly opinionated, ain't he?)