An "actual mail client" is any mail client that speaks SMTP. This "use a real X" or "real programmers always do X this way" stuff is why many tech communities are considered hostile and toxic, especially to newcomers. It's childish in personal settings and unprofessional in work settings.
The funny thing is that most of the people who continue to hold these attitudes weren't even around or on the internet when it was slow and expensive to sling around rich text or binaries. I mean, I was born in the 80s and got an account with my local ISP in the early 90s, after spending a few years hanging out on BBSes playing door games (anyone remember Virtual Sysop?). I agree that binaries or anything other than plain text was a pain to deal with back then; I had a 2400 baud modem, and even when I managed to get something faster, the phone lines in my area were too noisy to give me anything faster than 19.2kbps. And I'm not some greybeard either; I wasn't around when 300 baud was state-of-the-art.
But we've moved on from that time. It feels like the height of arrogance and gatekeeping to look down on someone who just wants to be able to italicize or bold some text in their emails sometimes.
An "actual mail client" is any mail client that speaks SMTP. This "use a real X" or "real programmers always do X this way" stuff is why many tech communities are considered hostile and toxic, especially to newcomers. It's childish in personal settings and unprofessional in work settings.
The funny thing is that most of the people who continue to hold these attitudes weren't even around or on the internet when it was slow and expensive to sling around rich text or binaries. I mean, I was born in the 80s and got an account with my local ISP in the early 90s, after spending a few years hanging out on BBSes playing door games (anyone remember Virtual Sysop?). I agree that binaries or anything other than plain text was a pain to deal with back then; I had a 2400 baud modem, and even when I managed to get something faster, the phone lines in my area were too noisy to give me anything faster than 19.2kbps. And I'm not some greybeard either; I wasn't around when 300 baud was state-of-the-art.
But we've moved on from that time. It feels like the height of arrogance and gatekeeping to look down on someone who just wants to be able to italicize or bold some text in their emails sometimes.