Re: Thunderbird and patches (was Re: [PATCH v2] Enable setting attach as the default in .gitconfig for git-format-patch.)

From: Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>
Date: Feb 10, 2009, 10:07 UTC
Message-ID: <499151C9.7090502@drmicha.warpmail.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0902092105230.10279@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>

Johannes Schindelin venit, vidit, dixit 09.02.2009 21:09:

Show 30 quoted lines

> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Brandon Casey wrote:
> 
>> Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Ben Bucksch wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 09.02.2009 19:54, Brandon Casey wrote:
>>>>> I will follow up with an example patch which has the control 
>>>>> characters in it.
>>> You can use a mailer such as Alpine, which has no problems with patches 
>>> like that whatsoever.
>> Yes, that's my work-around.  Though it's pine, we're not modern enough to
>> have alpine.
> 
> BTW it seems that a few people misunderstood my comments.
> 
> Just to clarify: I am happy if a lot of non-technical people use 
> Thunderbird.  I mean, I am happy for them.
> 
> If it is too complicated for Thunderbird to accomodate the workflow 
> required on our mailing list, however, I will have to recommend another 
> tool to the people who want to contribute to Git.
> 
> I would not recommend emacs to a vim user, either.  Or vice versa.
> 
> In other words: use the right tool.  Or, as somebody put it at the 
> GitTogether: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

It just seems that the workflow "required" here on the git list is the way it is because it caters for differently abled MUAs which can't handle certain standards (inline disposition) efficiently. Mutt obviously can, so it's not a matter of John Doe's MUA versus geeky MUAs.

Thunderbird is differently abled also, of course, by way of definition, but also because there's no easy way to directly feed an e-mail (or a bunch of them) into a shell command such as git-am, e.g. So it certainly won't be a maintainer's MUA.

When I joined the git community I adjusted my personal workflow, which required posting by e-mail rather than nntp (gmane) and avoiding the natural way (attachments) for patch submission, even avoiding my main standards compliant MUA; rather than arguing for a change to the better, more standard conforming approach, and telling people here to use MUAs which can deal with it, i.e.: use the right tool. I know things won't change here, just as certain people won't either.

But please don't take the status quo here as something setting global standards. And don't take my conformance with the requirements here as approval.

Ben has shown remarkable willingness in helping get around the limitations of sending out patch files plainly included in e-mails, when using TB, so let's please focus on making that successful and keep the flame(r)s off this thread. Everyone will benefit, because it will keep the number of misformed patches (i.e. not matching local requirements) low.

Michael