[patch 01/15] [makedist.diff] initial attempt at getting make dist to succeed

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting Chris Shoemaker <c.shoemaker at cox.net>:

> On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 11:08:35AM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> Chris,
>>
>> These patches are sent "inline" rather than as attachments..  You should use
>> attachments so that mailers don't munge the whitespace.
>
> That's kind of odd.  If my mailer munged whitespace, then I'd
> certainly like to know, and I'd work to fix it.  But using attachments
> seems like an awkward work-around for bad mailer behavior.  Using
> attachments makes it very difficult to comment on the patch and also
> inconvenient to handle with normal text-processing tools.

Really?  None of the tools I've ever used have a problem with it.  I 
also don't
think it's a bad workaround..  I find it quite easy to reply to attachements,
especially when they are sent with a proper mime-type.  At least /my/ mailer
(Gnus) deals with that just fine.

> Most of the projects I work on would refuse attachments, preferring
> inlines.

I don't know what projects you're involved in, but all the projects I've been
involved with insist on attachments and refuse inlines because mailers b0rk
them too often.

> Notice that the attachments would be to _empty_ bodies.  The entire
> email body *is* the foo.diff file.  (patch ignores the comments up
> front.)  I guess I could see a benefit to attachments if I sent them
> all together in one email.

That's fine.  I don't see a problem with the attachment being an empty 
body. Worst case you could just duplicate the subject in the message 
text.

> Are there MUAs that will munge whitespace when saving an email to a
> file?  If anyone wants a particular patch as an attachment, let me
> know, and I'll send it offlist.

Perhaps, yes.  But there are MANY MTAs that will munge the messages in 
transit. Are you sure that somewhere between you and me there isn't one 
MTA that's going
to do that?  Or between you and whoever it is that applie the patches?

> -chris

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available