Re: Consensus on "Re: "

From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed May 12 2004 - 10:07:17 CDT


In <409B9F5F.7050002@erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:

>You have completely missed the point. How precisely does vi, when opening
>a new document which is to become a proto-article followup, "prepare a
>'default' subject"? Moreover, you are presuming universal availability and
>applicability of certain UI characteristics which are not universally
>available; e.g. "click" makes no sense for a character-based UI.

Which bit of 'It could even provide a "click"' do you not understand? Has
it not occurred to you that an enterprising implementor writing for a
non-graphical interface could as easily ask the user to type 'y' or 'n' to
a suitably posed question?

The only point is that if the user can't or won't provide a subject, then
the system provides a default (with of without a "Re:"). If the user is
using vi, or some home-grown script, then it is his responsibility to see
that some acceptable subject is provided. See my reply to Eivind.

>No, that is not what it says. If the intent is in fact to say that the
>user has ultimate responsibility for the field content, then simply say
>so.

It does say so, when is says that the user may "override" whatever the
system has provided.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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