[Design] Requirements?

[Ray Ryan]

On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 10:11  PM, Andy Hertzfeld wrote:

>        Can you explain the benefits you see from Chandler being an 
> SMTP/POP server in more detail?  It seems like a rather cumbersome way 
> to import/export to me.

I'm expecting Bruce Dykes to weigh in with his "Chandler as client(s) 
and daemon" argument, which I'm really starting to buy.

If Chandler's back end is both an SMTP server and an IMAP server, users 
can get its benefits without giving up a mail client they might have 
the nerve to prefer to Chandler's. It's the Zoe approach.

You can make a strong argument to take this pretty far, and separate 
Chandler's end user components into separate client apps.

One of the things I dislike about Mozilla is its monolithic nature. If 
its e-mail feature gets bogged down, you can't web browse. When its IRC 
interface has a lot of processing to do, e-mail and browsing are lost 
to you. I can't be alone in this complaint, or Chimera wouldn't have so 
much momentum.

Similarly, suppose I like Mozilla's e-mail client but prefer another 
browser. If I click an http:// link in an e-mail message, it's opening 
in Mozilla, period. I hate that. (It was true of Netscape, anyway, 
maybe I'm making bad Moz assumptions.)

Mac OS X Jaguar has introduced tight integration between its Mail, 
Address Book, iCal and iChat apps, and it's really pleasant. They all 
share the same notion of The World of People I Deal With, and have some 
knowledge of each other's provinces. (E.g., if I get e-mail from you 
and the Mail app notices you're on AIM, a graphic in the Mail app tells 
me so. I click it, and we're chatting.) They're independent of each 
other, but they still notice changes to that shared pool of info right 
away. (E.g., if I add a new AIM alias to my nephew's Address Book 
entry, iChat notices right away.)

So I get this nice, tight integration, but lose none of the benefits of 
independent apps. When iChat crashes, or hangs for a bit while a server 
times out, I can pop over to Mail and wait it out. If I'd rather use a 
different chat client, I can do so. If I'm lucky the chat client's 
developer will take advantage of the public API to the address service, 
and I'll keep my integration.

I think it's a success story, and a valuable example. And Chandler 
could take it so much further. Contrast it with the flawed (IMHO) 
Mozilla/Netscape monolith approach, and I think it's hard to argue 
against the app level split.

Ray