Bring email back into code-land

brail.vercel.app

6 pointssinclairnick3 comments

Absolutely not

If it can't be communicated in plain text, it has absolutely no place in my inbox(es)

Zooming out a little, it's fascinating to think about how much we've collectively allowed bullshit content to enter our attention from every medium - snail mail, email, phone calls, texts. The combined noise of it all is insufferable.

Indeed! The headline gave false hopes that the article may advocate for returning to plain text emails. It instead talks as if the biggest problem with email is the lack of even more complicated features. The introduction of html has already turned email it into a push version of attention seeking and pervasive user tracking on the web. It has made email ux bad for normal purposes like business communications. I for one really don't want any more of that.

Excellent direction. I'm already using React tsx email templates and ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup(). It allowed me to reuse React components and take advantage of TypeScript type checking in vscode. Existing state management code can be used inside these email templates (MobX). I've used many email template parsers but this setup has been the most optimal.

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