everything else.

I often get mail from people asking me, ``hey, do you still have a copy of that thing you wrote about [...]'' This happens often enough that I decided I should stop digging those things out on request, and just carve out a home for them on my web page. So this is it.

Warning, these are hardcore nerd documents. If you're looking for the fun stuff, it's over here. Or possibly over here.



Emacs Timeline A family tree of GNU Emacs and major related projects, 1976-present.
X Cut and Paste How cutting and pasting really works in X Windows, what Selections and Cut Buffers are, and how Emacs fits into the picture.
Tabs versus Spaces An attempt to introduce some facts and practicality into one of those arguments that just never goes away.
Character Sets All about Latin1, Windows CP-1252, and MacRoman, and why there are lots of web pages out there that use characters you can't see.
Java I like Java, but I hate Java too. Here are the things about it that bug me.
Garbage Collection Garbage collection has a bad rap. I argue that using a good garbage collector will result in more efficient and less buggy software than doing malloc/free by hand, and further, that using a bad garbage collector will still get a better product out the door faster.
about:authors The condensed and expurgated history of the about:authors URL.
Configuring
Netscape Mail
on Unix
An explanation of how the various mail-download methods work in the Unix versions of Netscape, how to configure sendmail compatibly, and why you can't use `procmail.'
Content-Length
Considered Harmful
A description of the format of traditional BSD `mbox' mail files (the file format used by Netscape, Eudora, and most other mail readers), why ``>From mangling'' happens, and why the Content-Length header is a hazard.
Generating
Message-IDs
An expired Internet Draft I wrote with recommendations on how mail and news clients can easily generate good, correct, and globally unique Message-IDs for their messages.
The Posted-and-
Mailed Header
An expired Internet Draft I wrote with a proposal on how combined mail/news clients should identify the messages they generate, to make it possible for the recipients to tell what's going on.
HTML Message
Composition
All these years later, and still nobody has made the composition of HTML mail and news messages in Netscape fail to suck. Here's my most recent rant/blueprint on the subject.
Mail Summary Files How mail summary files worked in Netscape Mail 2.0, 3.0, and Grendel, and where 4.0 went horribly wrong and left me hopping up and down and shouting ``I told you so.''
Message Threading A description of an algorithm for threading messages together (presenting the parent/child relationship of trees of messages and replies.) This is the algorithm used by Netscape Mail and News 2.0, 3.0, and Grendel, but is not what 4.0 uses (see ``I told you so,'' above.)
Linux A mini-rant about the state of Linux usability, circa 1998.
Easter Eggs Why all cool programs have easter eggs, Netscape Navigator in particular.
The Emacs Schism Lucid Emacs versus FSF Emacs: step right this way and kick the dead horse once more!
XEmacs Wishlist In 1997, I composed a wishlist of the ten most important things that I thought XEmacs needed. Sadly, the XEmacs maintainers still don't seem to agree, so these wishes are still valid.
Worse is Better I didn't write this one, Richard Gabriel did, but it's been on my page forever, and you should read it. It explains why mediocrity has better survival characteristics than perfection, using Unix's triumph over the Lisp Machines as an illustration.


© 1994-2000 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>