[mishmash]

>Am I insane for being completely satisfied with $80,000/yr to do really cool multithreaded programming work on some seriously beefy hardware? (Midwest area.)

In 10 years of midwest experience, $80k is probably a bit on the low side for systems-level work. Just a few years ago I would see DreamWeaver jockeys pick up full time for ~$50k/year. One hire did NOT know the difference between HTML and an HTTP server, someone else called me into a training session she was hosting and asked why her form wouldn't work. She had set the form's action param to email:

  <form action="mailto:[e-mail]">

Sadly I'm not kidding. :(

On the high-side, I've seen C/C++ contractors charge $100-$250/hour, depending wildly on the individual consultants.

So I don't think you're crazy for being happy. And great working conditions can have an often immeasurable impact on life. Happiness, is, after all, the end game - and a guaranteed $80k/year might be worth more than an unknown $120k/year for some people.

[kragen]

Mailto actions were widely supported in early (pre-Netscape!) browsers, weren't they?

[mishmash]

Cool, I didn't know that (started late 90s here) but that wasn't what this person attempting to do. Apparently she had asked for the source from another dev's script and saw something like:

  action="process.php"

And just thought This Should Work™ too and put the mailto: into the form. When it happened, in front of 50 other people, I just stared at her for a moment and said it was complex and we could look at it later. Not really much else you can do in those situations.

[Drbble]

http://www.google.com/search?q=mailto+form+action

[dalke]

No. Mosaic did not have an integrated email reader, and there was no protocol for starting your mail client of choice. OmniWeb did support mailto: by passing it over to the mail app on NeXTStep, but that was an uncommon platform.

[nemetroid]

When I first learnt HTML in the late nineties, the book I used contained mailto actions on forms, which I remember worked just fine for me in IE (4 or 5). Some searching suggests that IE interfaced with Outlook Express to do this.

[sopooneo]

Interesting. How on earth did that work? Did browsers have built in SMTP clients?

[dalke]

Netscape included a mail client.