smtp crap

[Miles Bader]

Why does emacs _keep_ asking me if I want to "Set up Emacs for sending
SMTP mail"?!

My computer has a MTA, it works; if Emacs tries to send smtp directly,
it very possibly _won't_ work[*].  So this question isn't just
annoying, it's harmful.

I kept answer "n" to this question, but just now I accidentally
answered "y" -- and now only did that one piece of mail end up in the
bit-bucket, but emacs now seems to be in a state where it thinks I
want to use smtp -- it keeps asking me for an smtp server -- even
though I've changed the variable (`send-mail-function') back to what I
guess it should be (`sendmail-send-it').  Ok, I needed to _also_
change back `message-send-mail-with-sendmail' (why?).

[*] the ISP's smtp server is picky: you need both authentication
(postscript does this; does gnus?) and to be careful about the
envelope sender -- it has to have a valid hostname, which the system
hostname is not (blame NTP...).

-miles

-- 
Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a
Liberal, who wants to replace them with new ones.