What could be the extreme of building logic inside an application(software) i.e. GMail Attachment Validation

Question

I have recently visted the GMail Blog, and found the extreme point of logic building inside software,

i.e.

Never forget an attachment again

Gmail looks for phrases in your email that suggest you meant to attach a file (things like "I've attached" or "see attachment") and warns you if it looks like you forgot to do so. Every day, this saves tons of people the embarrassment of having to send a follow up email with the file actually attached.

I think this is too much...

Please share your expreience about the extreme point of logic building inside software/application.

Answer 1

Google is writing their code for their application.

If the context were instead a public library for sending mail messages, then your argument of "this is too much" might have more weight. In that case, a better approach might be to provide a hook where code can be installed that can check the text and attachments and issue a warning if something doesn't look right.

The attached / not attached issue is very common and this is a completely reasonable way for Google to handle it in Gmail. Most likely it is in the same block of code that checks for empty messages and blank subject lines.