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Are there actually good clients for mailing lists? [Answered: No] (programming.dev)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by to c/programming@programming.dev
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Some people talk about mailing lists with a lot of reverence, but I have only ever found them to be extremely ugly and unreadable.

Are there any good clients out there that make them readable? For example a lemmy-like, threaded interface with interactivity? Or for PR/MRs an interface that shows the diffs with syntax highlighting, toggleable unified and side by side diff views, ability to comment within diffs and continue discussions within them (maybe even threaded)?

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[–] 2 points 5 months ago (6 children)

It's a good question. I hope so, but I guess not - at best, a good email client will have some functionality that improves things a bit. Possible workflow:

  • a filter that puts all messages from one mailing list into a folder
  • enable Threaded View for that folder and possibly some other things that make it less "ugly" to you.

If email itself isn't interactive enough for you, I don't see how to increase that with email. And what have PRs got to do with mailing lists per se?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    And what have PRs got to do with mailing lists per se?

    I posted in the programming community. Mailing lists are used for submitting patches.

    a good email client will have some functionality that improves things a bit

    I've tried Thunderbird, KMail, and whatever the Gnome one is called. Frankly, it doesn't really improve on legibility. It's a bit better, yes, but even hackernews looks better. It's a far cry from lemmy's UI. If they had markdown support, that would be an improvement.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

    Mailing lists are used for submitting patches

    Inline? That seems wrong. Or as .patch files, i.e. attachments? Then the syntax highlighting becomes a task for whatever app opens that file.

    BTW Evolution has markdown support.

    I honestly don't understand your complaints about the visuals. It's plain text, sometimes HTML. It's readable. It brings the info across. You can reply, personally or to the list. What do you want, banners? Google Fonts? Big friendly green buttons? A social-media-fication of your programming mailing list?

    The answer to what you're asking for / complaining about boils down to "don't use mailing lists if your community requires that amount of interactiveness and coding gamification".

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (1 child)

    No, mailing lists are used for submitting patches inline. That's how the Linux kernel and many other projects do it.

    For this reason, all patches should be submitted by e-mail “inline”.

    https://docs.kernel.org/process/submitting-patches.html

    Edit OP linked an example above: https://lkml.org/lkml/2026/5/12/22

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I knew I'd get at least one of you people in here 🙄

    "I don't see a problem therefore it doesn't exist".

    "Everything is fine the way it is, stop complaining."

    "Muh terminals be best"

    I guess Bauhaus is your favorite style too.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    None of that reflects what I actually wrote.

    I guess Bauhaus is your favorite style too.

    Nah, more into Brutalism. What's yours ? Roccoco?

    (I love the idea of architectural insults, bring it on)

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