🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5975@ogicse.ogc.edu> schaefer@ogicse.UUCP (Barton E. Schaefer) writes:
>In article <4374@ur-cc.UUCP> Mark Sirota <msir@cc.rochester.edu> writes:
>> I am bothered by the fact that when including a message (with "mail -i" or
>> "~i"), the blank lines at the beginning and end of the body are included.
>
> The "write" command no longer includes the leading and trailing blank
> lines, but special dispensation was made to do keep them in ~i.  Getting
> rid of them would actually *remove* a special case.
>
> However, at least in the case of the leading blank line, I actually prefer
> to have it there, separating $pre_indent_str from the message body, but of
> course a newline can be forced into $pre_indent_str.
>
> Although included text is implemented by keeping the leading and trailing
> blank lines, the original feeling was that it looked best that way -- they
> would have have been added if they weren't already there.

This discussion centers somewhat around what looks best, which is, of
course, a silly argument to have.  However, since there is a way to give the
users the choice rather than deciding it for them, and since doing so would
actually simplify the code, it seems clear to me what the proper action is.

On the looks issue, I see your point on the leading blank line separating
the body from $pre_indent_str.  However, what if you didn't have a
$pre_indent_str?  It would look kinda silly then, don't you think?

As for the trailing blank line, I think it's useless.  (Maybe if I used
$post_indent_str I wouldn't think so, but then I could always add it...)  My
first paragraph in this article is much better separated from the included
text than it would be with a line beginning with '>', IMHO.
-- 
Mark Sirota - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
 Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu
 Bitnet:   msir@uordbv.bitnet
 UUCP:     {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-cc!msir