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author markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
date Mon, 14 May 2012 11:11:24 +0200
parents d996f130e279
children 2fea9739507f
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meillo@0 1 .H0 "Preface" no
meillo@0 2
meillo@23 3 .P
meillo@23 4 MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, like
meillo@23 5 the Unix toolchest is a set of file handling tools with a common
meillo@23 6 concept. nmh is the currently most popular implementation of an
meillo@23 7 MH-like mail handling system.
meillo@31 8 This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh,
meillo@31 9 named \fImmh\fP.
meillo@31 10 The project goals for mmh are modernizing, stream-lining and exploiting
meillo@31 11 MH's concepts even more thoroughly.
meillo@23 12
meillo@30 13 .U2 "Background to this Thesis
meillo@8 14 .P
meillo@28 15 I have discovered nmh in September 2009. At that time I used to use the
meillo@31 16 mail client \fImutt\fP, like many advanced Unix users do.
meillo@31 17 As I read about nmh, its concepts had convinced me at once.
meillo@31 18 Learning its different model of email handling had been relatively easy,
meillo@31 19 because my starting situation was being convinced of the concepts.
meillo@31 20 The transition from mutt to nmh was similar to
meillo@28 21 managing files in the Unix shell when being used to graphical file
meillo@31 22 managers, or like editing with vi when being used to modeless editors.
meillo@31 23 Such a change is not trivial, but in being convinced by the
meillo@31 24 concepts and by having done similar transitions for file management
meillo@31 25 and editing already, it was not too difficult neither.
meillo@28 26 In contrast, setting up nmh to a convenient state became a tendious task
meillo@23 27 that took several months.
meillo@23 28 .P
meillo@28 29 Once having nmh arranged to a convenient state, I enjoyed using it
meillo@28 30 because of its conceptional elegance and its scripting capabilities.
meillo@23 31 On the other hand, however, it still was
meillo@31 32 inconvenient for handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings,
meillo@23 33 and similar features of modern emailing.
meillo@31 34 My setup demanded more and more additional configuration and helper scripts
meillo@31 35 to get nmh behave the way I wanted, although my
meillo@31 36 expectations were rather common for modern emailing.
meillo@31 37 In being a computer scientist and programmer,
meillo@31 38 I wanted to improve the situation.
meillo@8 39 .P
meillo@31 40 In Spring 2010, I asked on the \fInmh-workers\fP mailing list for the
meillo@31 41 possibility to offer a Google Summer of Code project.
meillo@23 42 Participating in the development this way appeared attractive to me,
meillo@31 43 as it would have been possible to have the project
meillo@31 44 accepted at university. Although generally the nmh community
meillo@31 45 had been positive on the
meillo@31 46 suggestion, the administrative work had been to much, eventually.
meillo@31 47 But my proposal had activated the nmh community.
meillo@31 48 In the following weeks, goals for nmh's future were discussed.
meillo@31 49 In these discussions, I became involved in the
meillo@23 50 question whether nmh should be an MTA. (Thread subject:
meillo@23 51 ``should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?''.)
meillo@31 52 In this central point, my opinion differed from the opinion of most others.
meillo@31 53 I argued for the MTA facility of nmh to be removed.
meillo@31 54 Besides the discussions, hardly any real work was done.
meillo@31 55 Being unable to work on nmh in a way that would be
meillo@31 56 accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to choose another project.
meillo@8 57 .P
meillo@23 58 Half a year later, starting in August 2010,
meillo@23 59 I took one semester off to travel through Latin America.
meillo@31 60 Within this time, I had to do practical computer work for three months.
meillo@23 61 This brought me back to nmh.
meillo@23 62 Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for
meillo@23 63 me to work on nmh. Juan Granda, living in Santiago del
meillo@31 64 Estero in Argentina, provided a computer with Internet connection for
meillo@31 65 my work. Thanks to them, I was able to work on nmh during my three-month
meillo@31 66 stay in Argentina.
meillo@31 67 Within this time, I became familiar with nmh's code base and
meillo@31 68 community. I learned how things work. Quickly it became obvious that
meillo@31 69 I wouldn't succeed with my main goal: improving the character
meillo@31 70 encoding handling within the project. One of its ramifications is the
meillo@31 71 missing transfer decoding of quoted text in replies.
meillo@23 72 As this is one of the most intricate parts of the system, the goal
meillo@31 73 was simply set too high. Hence, I dropped the original plan.
meillo@31 74 Instead, I improved the code base as I read through it. I found minor bugs
meillo@31 75 for which I proposed fixes to the community. In the same go, I
meillo@31 76 improved the documentation in minor ways. When I started with
meillo@31 77 larger code changes, I had to discover that the community was reluctant
meillo@31 78 to change. Its wish for compatibility was much stronger than its
meillo@31 79 wish for convenient out-of-the-box setups \(en in contrast to my opinion.
meillo@23 80 This lead to long discussions, again.
meillo@31 81 I came to understand their point of view, but it is different to mine.
meillo@23 82 At the end of my three-month project, I had become familiar with
meillo@31 83 nmh's code base and community. I had improved the project in minor ways,
meillo@31 84 and I still was convinced that I wanted to go on to do so.
meillo@23 85 .P
meillo@23 86 Another half a year later, the end of my studies came within reach.
meillo@23 87 I needed a topic for my master's thesis.
meillo@23 88 There was no question: I wanted to work on nmh.
meillo@23 89 But well, not exactly on nmh,
meillo@8 90 because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals
meillo@31 91 than I have. This would result in much discussion and thus little progress.
meillo@23 92 After careful thought, I decided to start an experimental version of nmh.
meillo@31 93 I wanted to implement my own ideas of how an MH-like system should look like.
meillo@31 94 I wanted to see where that would lead to.
meillo@31 95 I wanted to create a usable alternative version to be compared with
meillo@31 96 the present state of nmh.
meillo@31 97 My work should be proved successful or failed.
meillo@31 98 The nmh project would not be hurt by my work, but
meillo@31 99 it would profit from my experiences.
meillo@28 100
meillo@30 101 .U2 "Focus of this Document
meillo@8 102 .P
meillo@31 103 This document describes my work on the experimental nmh version, named
meillo@31 104 \fImmh\fP. It explains the changes to nmh, with focus on their reasons.
meillo@31 105 It discusses technical, historical, social and philosophical considerations.
meillo@31 106 On the technical side, this document
meillo@31 107 explains how an existing project was stream-lined by removing rough edges
meillo@31 108 and exploiting the central concepts better.
meillo@31 109 On the historical
meillo@31 110 side, changes through time in the use cases and the email features,
meillo@31 111 as well as the reactions to them, are discussed.
meillo@31 112 Socially, this document describes the effects
meillo@28 113 and experiences of a newcomer with revolutionary aims entering an old
meillo@31 114 and matured software projects.
meillo@31 115 Finally, philosophical thoughts on style, mainly based to the Unix philosophy,
meillo@31 116 are present throughout the discussions.
meillo@23 117 .P
meillo@31 118 This document is written for the community around MH-like mail systems,
meillo@31 119 including developers and users.
meillo@31 120 First of all, the document shall explain the design goals and
meillo@31 121 implementation decisions for mmh. But as well, it shall clarify my
meillo@30 122 personal perception of the
meillo@31 123 concepts of MH and Unix, and explain my therefrom resulting point of view.
meillo@31 124 Despite the focus on MH-like systems, this document may be worthwhile
meillo@31 125 to anyone interested in the Unix philosophy and anyone in contact to
meillo@31 126 old software projects, be it code or community-related.
meillo@28 127 .P
meillo@30 128 The reader is expected to have good knowledge of Unix, C and emailing.
meillo@30 129 Good Unix shell
meillo@28 130 knowledge, including shell scripting, is required. MH relies fundamentally
meillo@28 131 on the shell. Without the power of the shell, MH becomes a motorbike
meillo@30 132 without winding roads: boring.
meillo@31 133 Introductions to Unix and its shell can be found in ``The UNIX Programming
meillo@31 134 Environment'' by Kernighan and Pike or ``The UNIX System'' by Bourne.
meillo@28 135 The reader is
meillo@28 136 expected to be familiar with the C programming language, although the
meillo@30 137 document should be understandable without knowledge of C, too.
meillo@31 138 ``The C Programming Language'' by Kernighan and Ritchie is the
meillo@31 139 definitive guide to C.
meillo@28 140 Some book about system-level C programming is worthwile additional
meillo@28 141 literature. Rochkind and Curry have written such books.
meillo@31 142 As large parts of the code are old, old books are likely more helpful
meillo@31 143 to understanding.
meillo@28 144 The format of email messages as well as the structure of email transfer
meillo@28 145 systems should be familiar to the reader, at least on a basic level.
meillo@31 146 It's advisable to have at least cross-read the RFCs 821 and 822.
meillo@31 147 Further more, basic understanding of MIME is good to have.
meillo@31 148 The Wikipedia provides good introduction-level information to email.
meillo@28 149 Frequent references to the Unix philosophy will be made.
meillo@31 150 Gancarz had tried to sum the philosophy up in his book ``The UNIX Philosophy''.
meillo@31 151 Even better but less concrete are ``The UNIX Programming Environment'' and
meillo@31 152 ``The Practice of Programming'' by Kernighan and Pike.
meillo@28 153 The term paper ``Why the Unix Philosophy still matters'' by myself
meillo@28 154 provides an overview on the topic, including a case study of MH.
meillo@30 155 Although a brief introduction to MH is provided in Chapter 1, the reader
meillo@30 156 is encouraged to have a look at the \fIMH Book\fP by Jerry Peek.
meillo@30 157 It is the definitive guide to MH and nmh.
meillo@31 158 The current version is available freely on the Internet.
meillo@30 159 .P
meillo@30 160 This document is neither a user's tutorial to mmh nor an introduction
meillo@31 161 to any of the topics covered. It discusses Unix, email
meillo@30 162 and system design on an advanced level.
meillo@30 163 However, as knowledge of the fundamental concepts is the most valuable
meillo@31 164 information a user can aquire about some program or software system,
meillo@31 165 this document might be worth a read for non-developers as well.
meillo@8 166
meillo@8 167
meillo@28 168 .U2 "Organization
meillo@0 169 .P
meillo@28 170 Which font for what use.
meillo@28 171 Meaning of `foo(1)'.
meillo@28 172 RFCs.
meillo@28 173 MH vs. nmh vs. mmh.
meillo@28 174 .P
meillo@28 175 This thesis is devided into XXX chapters, ...
meillo@24 176 .P
meillo@24 177 .I Chapter 1
meillo@24 178 introduces ...
meillo@24 179 .P
meillo@24 180 .I Chapter 2
meillo@24 181 describes ...
meillo@24 182 .P
meillo@24 183 .I Chapter 3
meillo@24 184 covers ...
meillo@24 185
meillo@23 186
meillo@28 187 .U2 "Acknowledgments
meillo@23 188 .P
meillo@24 189 To be written at the very end.
meillo@0 190
meillo@0 191
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