For those not aware, there was a recent mess started by Brent Simmons on creating a new open source email client for Macs, to be called Letters.app. I’ve been following the carnage since Monday and just wanted to lay down some random thoughts here.

I will call right now that its doomed to fail. Why? Because the clients aren’t the problem.

SMTP Sucks

SMTP and this retarded communications method we are all bound to is the problem.

Example: Do you top-post replies or bottom post them? Should it even fraking matter or should the protocol provide message threading for you and let such behavior be a user preference?

Example: SPAM. A decently designed protocol could curb unsolicited messages; not eliminate them entirely, mind, but drastically reduce them.

Example: Message content and attachments; SMTP was designed for plain-text transmission of simple messages, which has hamstrung both the protocol and the clients ability to distribute and display rich content and files. The concept of ‘file sharing’ using anything but email is lost on most non-geeks.

All that said, the point is moot because SMTP isn’t going anywhere for a while. A successor isn’t even on the horizon.

However, the advent of services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Droplr, Google Docs, MobileMe, etc. is making the sharing of pictures, documents, etc. easier via web technologies. Perhaps if these services can take over enough of the burden, the dependency on SMTP-based messages can be reduced to the point that it will eventually die or be replaced by a new protocol that is more secure and better engineered for modern (and future) communication needs. Could happen in 5 years, might happen in 10, or it could never happen.

Bitching about Nothing

Regardless of the inherent failures in the protocol itself, this troop of developers and laymen are hellbent that there is a great need for a new Mail client; even though for the most part people are wanting email clients to do things that they was never intended to do and shouldn’t be used for anyway…

Example: Organizing/aggregating/viewing crash reports; this was given as an example in several threads (by multiple users) on the mailing list of “something this client should handle well.” If you want to use email as the medium in which you receive crash reports fine, but why should it have to handle the indexing/cataloging/etc for you as well? Why not write a good, scriptable CrashLogTracker that you can then write a script or service and extend Mail to accommodate it? Maybe I missed the boat on that point, but it was suggested along with the idea of creating a “theming” system for messages ala NetNewsWire, which can apply custom templates to RSS message bodies.

And More…

Most of the bitching about current clients seems to stem from Thunderbird’s lack of Mac-ness, and Mail’s lack of “power user” abilities, its slowness, or its crashes. Other clients are often mentioned as having high points, but nobody outright addresses the pitfalls of each client. My thoughts?

Thunderbird: I don’t deny that Thunderbird doesn’t have much Mac flair. But why not band together and work towards FIXING it, rather than creating something new? Yeah…since its a Mozilla project, that’s probably not such a good idea. T-bird is all but dead to me, much like Firefox.

Mail != PowerUser: As a huge Mail proponent, I’m quite happy with it. I use a boatload of rules to direct messages to various folders, and I have a metric shitton of email (rough estimates, I’ll put it at around 50-60k messages). The elegance and simplicity, yet robust capability of Mail is the *definition* of a PowerUser’s application. The editor lets me compose in plain text, but doesn’t castrate HTML or RTF emails when I try to forward them on to people. I apparently don’t have the issues with quoting or conversation threading that other people do.

Mail != Performance: As stated above, I’ve got 50-60,000 messages in Mail and it rarely balks at me. The app itself is responsive and operations are performed quickly. Thanks to the power of Spotlight I can search that entire archive in a matter of seconds. Bottom line is, if Mail was the worst performing app on my system (like some people claim it is for them), I would be a very happy nerd.

Mail != Stable: Issues that I have had I’ve filed bug reports with Apple on and they have typically been addressed…perhaps not always in what I would call a timely fashion, but they DO listen. I have never had Mail crash and corrupt email on its way down (can’t say that about any other client I’ve used). I’ve never had Mail crash during a routine operation (it usually takes something out of the ordinary, attaching or opening an odd or malformed file, for example).

On HTML Email

I don’t really give a damn about the format that people send me messages in. Its text. It may look different, but its text. Going from App to App and webpage to webpage my eyes adjust to different fonts thousands of times a day. Bitching about HTML email fucking up your Qi is just retarded. On that note, any client that doesn’t support it properly is going to look like it fell out of a 2001 time warp. Nobody is stopping you from using TextMate as your mail editor. But when a client hamstrings my ability to do my job (in this case, forward mail coherently, regardless of formatting), it ends up in my Trash folder.

Performance vs Plugins

There is a ton of support behind basically creating an email client that is but a shell, wherein all but “core” functionality is provided by plugins or bundles, keeping the “program” (it can’t really be called that in that instance) “light and fast.”

I call bullshit.

Performance, Functionality (read: bloat), and Usability are not bound by any relationship that I have ever been able to discern. There are many, many, many incredibly complex programs out there that perform EXTREMELY well. Most of those programs remain incredibly useful. There are poorly DESIGNED programs that are full of bloat, with ill-construed features that cause more harm than good. I don’t think you should attempt to handicap a program’s functionality from the get-go for the sake of some mythical performance level you hope to achieve.