Re: Nota Bene and writing emails

["Shawn Harrison" SAH@xxxxxxxx]

Carl Distefano said:
.....
on the central issue of email
integration, am I a voice in the desert? I suppose a similar
argument can be made for integrating editor + browser (or editor +
everything), but that's another jeremiad.
.....

This weekend I stopped by my local Borders and was thumbing through a book called "Weaving the
Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor", Tim
Berners-Lee, et al. This idea of integrated browsing + composing/editing appeared to be one of the
key ideas in Berners-Lee's vision of the Internet. And in fact, the W3C has created the Amaya
browser/editor for just this purpose. The idea is that a person should be able to interact
creatively, rather than just passively, with the content of the Internet. I don't think Amaya
includes email, but this would certainly be part of the picture.

I haven't used GNU Emacs extensively, but from what I understand it combines email, Web browsing, and editing in one environment, much in the way you are envisioning. Also, the Alpha (programmer's) text editor (http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/keleher/alpha/) for the Macintosh incorporates email into the editor rather completely, so you can send, receive, reply, etc. from there.

So, if you are a voice in the desert, at least you're not alone (Richard Stallman and the W3C are right there with you ;->).


S.H.
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sah@xxxxxxxx
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