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Rework in Preface.
| author | markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> |
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| date | Mon, 14 May 2012 11:11:24 +0200 |
| parents | d996f130e279 |
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1 .H0 "Preface" no |
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| 23 | 3 .P |
| 4 MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, like | |
| 5 the Unix toolchest is a set of file handling tools with a common | |
| 6 concept. nmh is the currently most popular implementation of an | |
| 7 MH-like mail handling system. | |
| 31 | 8 This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh, |
| 9 named \fImmh\fP. | |
| 10 The project goals for mmh are modernizing, stream-lining and exploiting | |
| 11 MH's concepts even more thoroughly. | |
| 23 | 12 |
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13 .U2 "Background to this Thesis |
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14 .P |
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15 I have discovered nmh in September 2009. At that time I used to use the |
| 31 | 16 mail client \fImutt\fP, like many advanced Unix users do. |
| 17 As I read about nmh, its concepts had convinced me at once. | |
| 18 Learning its different model of email handling had been relatively easy, | |
| 19 because my starting situation was being convinced of the concepts. | |
| 20 The transition from mutt to nmh was similar to | |
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21 managing files in the Unix shell when being used to graphical file |
| 31 | 22 managers, or like editing with vi when being used to modeless editors. |
| 23 Such a change is not trivial, but in being convinced by the | |
| 24 concepts and by having done similar transitions for file management | |
| 25 and editing already, it was not too difficult neither. | |
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26 In contrast, setting up nmh to a convenient state became a tendious task |
| 23 | 27 that took several months. |
| 28 .P | |
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29 Once having nmh arranged to a convenient state, I enjoyed using it |
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30 because of its conceptional elegance and its scripting capabilities. |
| 23 | 31 On the other hand, however, it still was |
| 31 | 32 inconvenient for handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings, |
| 23 | 33 and similar features of modern emailing. |
| 31 | 34 My setup demanded more and more additional configuration and helper scripts |
| 35 to get nmh behave the way I wanted, although my | |
| 36 expectations were rather common for modern emailing. | |
| 37 In being a computer scientist and programmer, | |
| 38 I wanted to improve the situation. | |
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39 .P |
| 31 | 40 In Spring 2010, I asked on the \fInmh-workers\fP mailing list for the |
| 41 possibility to offer a Google Summer of Code project. | |
| 23 | 42 Participating in the development this way appeared attractive to me, |
| 31 | 43 as it would have been possible to have the project |
| 44 accepted at university. Although generally the nmh community | |
| 45 had been positive on the | |
| 46 suggestion, the administrative work had been to much, eventually. | |
| 47 But my proposal had activated the nmh community. | |
| 48 In the following weeks, goals for nmh's future were discussed. | |
| 49 In these discussions, I became involved in the | |
| 23 | 50 question whether nmh should be an MTA. (Thread subject: |
| 51 ``should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?''.) | |
| 31 | 52 In this central point, my opinion differed from the opinion of most others. |
| 53 I argued for the MTA facility of nmh to be removed. | |
| 54 Besides the discussions, hardly any real work was done. | |
| 55 Being unable to work on nmh in a way that would be | |
| 56 accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to choose another project. | |
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57 .P |
| 23 | 58 Half a year later, starting in August 2010, |
| 59 I took one semester off to travel through Latin America. | |
| 31 | 60 Within this time, I had to do practical computer work for three months. |
| 23 | 61 This brought me back to nmh. |
| 62 Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for | |
| 63 me to work on nmh. Juan Granda, living in Santiago del | |
| 31 | 64 Estero in Argentina, provided a computer with Internet connection for |
| 65 my work. Thanks to them, I was able to work on nmh during my three-month | |
| 66 stay in Argentina. | |
| 67 Within this time, I became familiar with nmh's code base and | |
| 68 community. I learned how things work. Quickly it became obvious that | |
| 69 I wouldn't succeed with my main goal: improving the character | |
| 70 encoding handling within the project. One of its ramifications is the | |
| 71 missing transfer decoding of quoted text in replies. | |
| 23 | 72 As this is one of the most intricate parts of the system, the goal |
| 31 | 73 was simply set too high. Hence, I dropped the original plan. |
| 74 Instead, I improved the code base as I read through it. I found minor bugs | |
| 75 for which I proposed fixes to the community. In the same go, I | |
| 76 improved the documentation in minor ways. When I started with | |
| 77 larger code changes, I had to discover that the community was reluctant | |
| 78 to change. Its wish for compatibility was much stronger than its | |
| 79 wish for convenient out-of-the-box setups \(en in contrast to my opinion. | |
| 23 | 80 This lead to long discussions, again. |
| 31 | 81 I came to understand their point of view, but it is different to mine. |
| 23 | 82 At the end of my three-month project, I had become familiar with |
| 31 | 83 nmh's code base and community. I had improved the project in minor ways, |
| 84 and I still was convinced that I wanted to go on to do so. | |
| 23 | 85 .P |
| 86 Another half a year later, the end of my studies came within reach. | |
| 87 I needed a topic for my master's thesis. | |
| 88 There was no question: I wanted to work on nmh. | |
| 89 But well, not exactly on nmh, | |
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90 because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals |
| 31 | 91 than I have. This would result in much discussion and thus little progress. |
| 23 | 92 After careful thought, I decided to start an experimental version of nmh. |
| 31 | 93 I wanted to implement my own ideas of how an MH-like system should look like. |
| 94 I wanted to see where that would lead to. | |
| 95 I wanted to create a usable alternative version to be compared with | |
| 96 the present state of nmh. | |
| 97 My work should be proved successful or failed. | |
| 98 The nmh project would not be hurt by my work, but | |
| 99 it would profit from my experiences. | |
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100 |
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101 .U2 "Focus of this Document |
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102 .P |
| 31 | 103 This document describes my work on the experimental nmh version, named |
| 104 \fImmh\fP. It explains the changes to nmh, with focus on their reasons. | |
| 105 It discusses technical, historical, social and philosophical considerations. | |
| 106 On the technical side, this document | |
| 107 explains how an existing project was stream-lined by removing rough edges | |
| 108 and exploiting the central concepts better. | |
| 109 On the historical | |
| 110 side, changes through time in the use cases and the email features, | |
| 111 as well as the reactions to them, are discussed. | |
| 112 Socially, this document describes the effects | |
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113 and experiences of a newcomer with revolutionary aims entering an old |
| 31 | 114 and matured software projects. |
| 115 Finally, philosophical thoughts on style, mainly based to the Unix philosophy, | |
| 116 are present throughout the discussions. | |
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117 .P |
| 31 | 118 This document is written for the community around MH-like mail systems, |
| 119 including developers and users. | |
| 120 First of all, the document shall explain the design goals and | |
| 121 implementation decisions for mmh. But as well, it shall clarify my | |
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122 personal perception of the |
| 31 | 123 concepts of MH and Unix, and explain my therefrom resulting point of view. |
| 124 Despite the focus on MH-like systems, this document may be worthwhile | |
| 125 to anyone interested in the Unix philosophy and anyone in contact to | |
| 126 old software projects, be it code or community-related. | |
| 23 | 127 .P |
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128 The reader is expected to have good knowledge of Unix, C and emailing. |
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129 Good Unix shell |
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130 knowledge, including shell scripting, is required. MH relies fundamentally |
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131 on the shell. Without the power of the shell, MH becomes a motorbike |
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132 without winding roads: boring. |
| 31 | 133 Introductions to Unix and its shell can be found in ``The UNIX Programming |
| 134 Environment'' by Kernighan and Pike or ``The UNIX System'' by Bourne. | |
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135 The reader is |
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136 expected to be familiar with the C programming language, although the |
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137 document should be understandable without knowledge of C, too. |
| 31 | 138 ``The C Programming Language'' by Kernighan and Ritchie is the |
| 139 definitive guide to C. | |
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140 Some book about system-level C programming is worthwile additional |
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141 literature. Rochkind and Curry have written such books. |
| 31 | 142 As large parts of the code are old, old books are likely more helpful |
| 143 to understanding. | |
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144 The format of email messages as well as the structure of email transfer |
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145 systems should be familiar to the reader, at least on a basic level. |
| 31 | 146 It's advisable to have at least cross-read the RFCs 821 and 822. |
| 147 Further more, basic understanding of MIME is good to have. | |
| 148 The Wikipedia provides good introduction-level information to email. | |
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149 Frequent references to the Unix philosophy will be made. |
| 31 | 150 Gancarz had tried to sum the philosophy up in his book ``The UNIX Philosophy''. |
| 151 Even better but less concrete are ``The UNIX Programming Environment'' and | |
| 152 ``The Practice of Programming'' by Kernighan and Pike. | |
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153 The term paper ``Why the Unix Philosophy still matters'' by myself |
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154 provides an overview on the topic, including a case study of MH. |
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155 Although a brief introduction to MH is provided in Chapter 1, the reader |
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156 is encouraged to have a look at the \fIMH Book\fP by Jerry Peek. |
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157 It is the definitive guide to MH and nmh. |
| 31 | 158 The current version is available freely on the Internet. |
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159 .P |
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160 This document is neither a user's tutorial to mmh nor an introduction |
| 31 | 161 to any of the topics covered. It discusses Unix, email |
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162 and system design on an advanced level. |
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163 However, as knowledge of the fundamental concepts is the most valuable |
| 31 | 164 information a user can aquire about some program or software system, |
| 165 this document might be worth a read for non-developers as well. | |
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166 |
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167 |
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168 .U2 "Organization |
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169 .P |
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170 Which font for what use. |
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171 Meaning of `foo(1)'. |
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172 RFCs. |
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173 MH vs. nmh vs. mmh. |
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174 .P |
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175 This thesis is devided into XXX chapters, ... |
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176 .P |
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177 .I Chapter 1 |
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178 introduces ... |
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179 .P |
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180 .I Chapter 2 |
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181 describes ... |
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182 .P |
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183 .I Chapter 3 |
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184 covers ... |
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185 |
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187 .U2 "Acknowledgments |
| 23 | 188 .P |
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189 To be written at the very end. |
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190 |
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191 |
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192 .\" End or Preface. Start of the normal text. |
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193 .\" Switch to arabic page numbers and start on a right page. |
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194 . |
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195 .if e \{ |
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196 . pn 1 |
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197 . af PN 1 |
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198 .\} |
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199 .if o \{ |
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200 . pn 0 |
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201 . af PN 0 |
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202 . bp |
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203 .\} |