Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucsbcsl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucsbcsl!forrest From: forrest@ucsbcsl.UUCP ( ) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: What irks me about Unix mail Message-ID: <198@ucsbcsl.UUCP> Date: Thu, 29-Nov-84 14:32:32 EST Article-I.D.: ucsbcsl.198 Posted: Thu Nov 29 14:32:32 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 05:04:43 EST Organization: U.C. Santa Barbara Lines: 28 In my posting called Unix Bugs vs. VMS Bugs I deliberately stayed away from technical differences between Unix and VMS, although some of the people who responded didn't follow suit. In this posting I'm not staying away from the technical differences between Unix and VMS. I want to discuss something that has caused me much grief in my attempts to reply to people who have sent me responses to my postings. This problem is the absence of routing by the mail system. Even though I'm a VMS manager, I'm just a Unix user. I don't have the same technical knowledge of Unix that a Unix manager has and, what's more, I don't want it. On Unix I want to be a user like everyone else. Therefore, I don't think its unreasonable to expect that when I get mail from someone, I should be able to fire up the reply option of mail and know that my response will get to them. After all, their message got to me OK. Most of the time, when I do this I get a message from some program (you never know on Unix where messages come from) telling me that the destination was unreachable. This is after I spent valuable time creating a message whose wit and insite would completely overwhelm (sp?) the person who is to receive it. On VMS I know as soon as I get the prompt for Subject that the destination is reachable. In my ignorance I may be doing something wrong. If so please correct me. Otherwise, I wonder if Unix is really the networking system is claimed to be. I mean this posting as constructive critism.