[Rd] attachments on R mailing lists

[(Ted Harding)]

On 26-Oct-06 Martin Maechler wrote:
> 
>>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Toews <mwtoews at sfu.ca>
>>>>>>     on Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:00:03 -0700 writes:
> 
>     Michael> Okay ... I'll try to attach that patch once more
>     Michael> ... (does this list only accept certain exertions
>     Michael> for attachments? I used '.patch', but it must have
>     Michael> been filtered off, so I'll try '.patch.txt' now
> 
> It's not the file name, but the MIME type of an attachment which
> is important.
>   text/plain  is valid, e.g.,
> 
> The posting guide and even http://www.r-project.org/mail.html
> mention this.
> 
> It seems your e-mail software does not allow to specify the MIME
> type used, but rather determines it from the file extension.
> Other e-mail client programs send all "unknown" attachments" as
> binary; and most ascii texts seem "unknown" in this regard.

Mine (XFMail) always gives me the option to confirm or change the
MIME type it has determined from the extension or, if it does not
recognise the extension, I am asked to assign the MIME type.

> All this feels Micro$oftish and it is sad to see that such a 
> softie--attitude also invades free software developments such
> as a unix-based version Thunderbird which I'm guessing you use.

I have to agree with this. Quite apart from any criticisms one
may have of the quality of technical performance of M$ software,
one of its major annoyances since its early days has been its
tendency to "know better" than the user, and to assume control
over choices which the user would prefer to make judiciously.

One outstanding quality of Unix, and later Linux, is the fact
that the user can consciously choose and control what the software
does. Regrettably, Linux increasingly conceals this beneath
"user-friendly" interfaces which take control, softie-style.
This is undoubtedly an attempt to appeal to a wider user-base.
Fortunately, the underlying controllability is still accessible
in many cases if you lift the lid. But GUI-driven applications
such as web-browsers and web-based mailers tend to work from
the top (GUI) down, making this hard to reach.

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
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Date: 26-Oct-06                                       Time: 12:56:22
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