| rev |
line source |
|
meillo@39
|
1 .RN 1
|
|
meillo@39
|
2
|
|
meillo@0
|
3 .H0 "Introduction
|
|
meillo@0
|
4 .P
|
|
meillo@53
|
5 MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, similar to
|
|
meillo@53
|
6 the Unix tool chest, which is a set of file handling tools with a common
|
|
meillo@53
|
7 concept. \fInmh\fP is the currently most popular implementation of an
|
|
meillo@53
|
8 MH-like mail handling system.
|
|
meillo@53
|
9 This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh, named \fImmh\fP.
|
|
meillo@53
|
10 .P
|
|
meillo@32
|
11 This chapter introduces MH, its history, concepts and how it is used.
|
|
meillo@47
|
12 It describes nmh's code base and community to give the reader
|
|
meillo@106
|
13 a better understanding of the state of mmh when it started off.
|
|
meillo@47
|
14 Further more, this chapter outlines the mmh project itself,
|
|
meillo@47
|
15 describing the motivation for it and its goals.
|
|
meillo@8
|
16
|
|
meillo@0
|
17
|
|
meillo@28
|
18 .H1 "MH \(en the Mail Handler
|
|
meillo@0
|
19 .P
|
|
meillo@47
|
20 MH is a conceptual email system design and its concrete implementation.
|
|
meillo@47
|
21 Notably, MH had started as a design proposal at RAND Corporation,
|
|
meillo@159
|
22 .\" XXX ref to rand corp.
|
|
meillo@47
|
23 where the first implementation followed later.
|
|
meillo@47
|
24 In spirit, MH is similar to Unix, which
|
|
meillo@42
|
25 influenced the world more in being a set of system design concepts
|
|
meillo@32
|
26 than in being a specific software product.
|
|
meillo@47
|
27 The ideas behind Unix are summarized in the \fIUnix philosophy\fP.
|
|
meillo@42
|
28 MH follows this philosophy.
|
|
meillo@2
|
29
|
|
meillo@11
|
30 .U2 "History
|
|
meillo@2
|
31 .P
|
|
meillo@32
|
32 In 1977 at RAND Corporation, Norman Shapiro and Stockton Gaines
|
|
meillo@106
|
33 proposed the design
|
|
meillo@32
|
34 of a new mail handling system, called ``Mail Handler'' (MH),
|
|
meillo@32
|
35 to superseed RAND's old monolithic ``Mail System'' (MS).
|
|
meillo@27
|
36 Two years later, in 1979, Bruce Borden took the proposal and implemented a
|
|
meillo@32
|
37 prototype of MH.
|
|
meillo@106
|
38 Before the prototype's existence, the concept was
|
|
meillo@47
|
39 believed to be practically unusable.
|
|
meillo@106
|
40 But the prototype proved successful and replaced MS thereafter.
|
|
meillo@164
|
41 In replacing MS, MH grew to provide anything necessary for emailing.
|
|
meillo@2
|
42 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
43 In the early eighties,
|
|
meillo@106
|
44 the University of California at Irvine (UCI) started to use MH.
|
|
meillo@106
|
45 Marshall T. Rose and John L. Romine then became the driving force.
|
|
meillo@57
|
46 They took over the development and pushed MH forward.
|
|
meillo@57
|
47 RAND had put the code into the public domain by then.
|
|
meillo@57
|
48 MH was developed at UCI at the time when the Internet appeared,
|
|
meillo@57
|
49 when UCB implemented the TCP/IP stack, and when Allman wrote Sendmail.
|
|
meillo@47
|
50 MH was extended as emailing became more featured.
|
|
meillo@32
|
51 The development of MH was closely related to the development of email
|
|
meillo@32
|
52 RFCs. In the advent of MIME, MH was the first implementation of this new
|
|
meillo@32
|
53 email standard.
|
|
meillo@2
|
54 .P
|
|
meillo@117
|
55 In the nineties, the Internet became popular and in December 1996,
|
|
meillo@47
|
56 Richard Coleman initiated the ``New Mail Handler'' (nmh) project.
|
|
meillo@57
|
57 Nmh is a fork of MH 6.8.3 and bases strongly on the
|
|
meillo@47
|
58 \fILBL changes\fP by Van Jacobson, Mike Karels and Craig Leres.
|
|
meillo@32
|
59 Colman intended to modernize MH and improve its portability and
|
|
meillo@32
|
60 MIME handling capabilities.
|
|
meillo@32
|
61 This should be done openly within the Internet community.
|
|
meillo@47
|
62 The development of MH at UCI stopped after the 6.8.4 release in
|
|
meillo@47
|
63 February 1996, soon after the development of nmh had started.
|
|
meillo@57
|
64 Today, nmh has almost completely replaced the original MH.
|
|
meillo@47
|
65 Some systems might still provide old MH, but mainly for historical reasons.
|
|
meillo@47
|
66 .P
|
|
meillo@171
|
67 In the last years, the changes in nmh were mostly maintenance work.
|
|
meillo@117
|
68 However, the development was revived in December 2011
|
|
meillo@57
|
69 and stayed busy since then.
|
|
meillo@0
|
70
|
|
meillo@11
|
71 .U2 "Concepts
|
|
meillo@0
|
72 .P
|
|
meillo@53
|
73 MH consists of a set of tools, each covering a specific task of
|
|
meillo@53
|
74 email handling, like composing a message, replying to a message,
|
|
meillo@53
|
75 refiling a message to a different folder, listing the messages in a folder.
|
|
meillo@47
|
76 All of the programs operate on a common mail storage.
|
|
meillo@42
|
77 .P
|
|
meillo@32
|
78 The mail storage consists of \fImail folders\fP (directories) and
|
|
meillo@32
|
79 \fPmessages\fP (regular files).
|
|
meillo@106
|
80 Each message is stored in a separate file in the format it was
|
|
meillo@47
|
81 received (i.e. transfer format).
|
|
meillo@47
|
82 The files are named with ascending numbers in each folder.
|
|
meillo@47
|
83 The specific format of the mail storage characterizes MH in the same way
|
|
meillo@106
|
84 as the format of the file system characterizes Unix.
|
|
meillo@42
|
85 .P
|
|
meillo@164
|
86 MH tools maintain a \fIcontext\fP, which includes for instance the
|
|
meillo@164
|
87 current mail folder.
|
|
meillo@32
|
88 Processes in Unix have a similar context, containing the current working
|
|
meillo@32
|
89 directory, for instance. In contrast, the process context is maintained
|
|
meillo@32
|
90 by the Unix kernel automatically, whereas MH tools need to maintain the MH
|
|
meillo@32
|
91 context themselves.
|
|
meillo@106
|
92 The user can have one MH context or multiple ones; he can even share it
|
|
meillo@106
|
93 with others.
|
|
meillo@42
|
94 .P
|
|
meillo@164
|
95 Messages are named by their numeric filename,
|
|
meillo@164
|
96 but they can have symbolic names, too.
|
|
meillo@164
|
97 These are either automatically updated
|
|
meillo@106
|
98 position names such as the next or the last message,
|
|
meillo@32
|
99 or user-settable group names for arbitrary sets of messages.
|
|
meillo@32
|
100 These names are called sequences.
|
|
meillo@47
|
101 Sequences can be bound to the containing folder or to the context.
|
|
meillo@2
|
102 .P
|
|
meillo@47
|
103 The user's \fIprofile\fP is a file that contains his MH configuration.
|
|
meillo@47
|
104 Default switches for the individual tools can be specified to
|
|
meillo@47
|
105 adjust them to the user's personal preferences.
|
|
meillo@164
|
106 Additionally, a single command can be linked under different names
|
|
meillo@164
|
107 with different default values easily.
|
|
meillo@51
|
108 Form templates for new messages or for replies are easily changeable,
|
|
meillo@47
|
109 and output is adjustable with format files.
|
|
meillo@47
|
110 Almost every part of the system can be adjusted to personal preference.
|
|
meillo@42
|
111 .P
|
|
meillo@51
|
112 The system is well scriptable and extensible.
|
|
meillo@47
|
113 New MH tools are built out of or on top of existing ones quickly.
|
|
meillo@51
|
114 Further more, MH encourages the user to tailor, extend and automate the system.
|
|
meillo@51
|
115 As the MH tool chest was modeled after the Unix tool chest, the
|
|
meillo@32
|
116 properties of the latter apply to the former as well.
|
|
meillo@8
|
117
|
|
meillo@102
|
118
|
|
meillo@102
|
119 .ig \"XXX
|
|
meillo@102
|
120
|
|
meillo@102
|
121 .P
|
|
meillo@102
|
122 To ease typing, the switches can be abbreviated as much as the remaining
|
|
meillo@102
|
123 prefix remains unambiguous.
|
|
meillo@102
|
124 If in our example no other switch would start with the letter `t', then
|
|
meillo@102
|
125 .Cl "-truncate" ,
|
|
meillo@102
|
126 .Cl "-trunc" ,
|
|
meillo@102
|
127 .Cl "-tr" ,
|
|
meillo@102
|
128 and
|
|
meillo@102
|
129 .Cl "-t
|
|
meillo@102
|
130 would all be the same.
|
|
meillo@102
|
131 As a result, switches can neither be grouped (as in
|
|
meillo@102
|
132 .Cl "ls -ltr" )
|
|
meillo@102
|
133 nor can switch arguments be appended directly to the switch (as in
|
|
meillo@102
|
134 .Cl "sendmail -q30m" ).
|
|
meillo@102
|
135 .P
|
|
meillo@102
|
136 Many switches have negating counter-parts, which start with `no'.
|
|
meillo@102
|
137 For example
|
|
meillo@102
|
138 .Cl "-notruncate
|
|
meillo@102
|
139 inverts the
|
|
meillo@102
|
140 .Cl "-truncate
|
|
meillo@102
|
141 switch.
|
|
meillo@102
|
142 They exist to undo the effect of default switches in the profile.
|
|
meillo@102
|
143 If the user has chosen to change the default behavior of some tool
|
|
meillo@102
|
144 by adding a default switch to the profile,
|
|
meillo@102
|
145 he can still undo this change in behavior by specifying the inverse
|
|
meillo@102
|
146 switch on the command line.
|
|
meillo@102
|
147
|
|
meillo@102
|
148 ..
|
|
meillo@102
|
149
|
|
meillo@102
|
150
|
|
meillo@54
|
151 .U2 "Using MH
|
|
meillo@53
|
152 .P
|
|
meillo@54
|
153 It is strongly recommended to have a look at the MH Book,
|
|
meillo@106
|
154 which offers a thorough introduction to using MH.
|
|
meillo@54
|
155 .[ [
|
|
meillo@54
|
156 peek mh book
|
|
meillo@54
|
157 .], Part II]
|
|
meillo@54
|
158 Rose and Romine provide a deeper and more technical
|
|
meillo@159
|
159 though slightly outdated introduction in only about two dozen pages.
|
|
meillo@54
|
160 .[
|
|
meillo@54
|
161 rose romine real work
|
|
meillo@54
|
162 .]
|
|
meillo@27
|
163 .P
|
|
meillo@53
|
164 Following is an example mail handling session.
|
|
meillo@53
|
165 It uses mmh but is mostly compatible with nmh and old MH.
|
|
meillo@106
|
166 Details might vary but the look and feel is the same.
|
|
meillo@82
|
167
|
|
meillo@83
|
168 .VF input/mh-session
|
|
meillo@27
|
169
|
|
meillo@27
|
170
|
|
meillo@131
|
171 .H1 "nmh
|
|
meillo@2
|
172 .P
|
|
meillo@49
|
173 In order to understand the condition, goals and dynamics of a project,
|
|
meillo@106
|
174 one needs to know the reasons behind them.
|
|
meillo@53
|
175 This section explains the background.
|
|
meillo@53
|
176 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
177 MH predates the Internet; it comes from times before networking was universal,
|
|
meillo@49
|
178 it comes from times when emailing was small, short and simple.
|
|
meillo@106
|
179 Then it grew, spread and adapted to the changes email went through.
|
|
meillo@49
|
180 Its core-concepts, however, remained the same.
|
|
meillo@106
|
181 During the eighties, students at UCI actively worked on MH.
|
|
meillo@164
|
182 They added new features and optimized the code for the systems
|
|
meillo@164
|
183 popular at that time.
|
|
meillo@49
|
184 All this still was in times before POSIX and ANSI C.
|
|
meillo@49
|
185 As large parts of the code stem from this time, today's nmh source code
|
|
meillo@49
|
186 still contains many ancient parts.
|
|
meillo@51
|
187 BSD-specific code and constructs tailored for hardware of that time
|
|
meillo@49
|
188 are frequent.
|
|
meillo@2
|
189 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
190 Nmh started about a decade after the POSIX and ANSI C standards were
|
|
meillo@49
|
191 established. A more modern coding style entered the code base, but still
|
|
meillo@49
|
192 a part of the developers came from ``the old days''. The developer
|
|
meillo@106
|
193 base became more diverse, thus broadening the range of different
|
|
meillo@106
|
194 coding styles.
|
|
meillo@49
|
195 Programming practices from different decades merged in the project.
|
|
meillo@51
|
196 As several peers added code, the system became more a conglomeration
|
|
meillo@51
|
197 of single tools rather than a homogeneous of-one-cast mail system.
|
|
meillo@49
|
198 Still, the existing basic concepts held it together.
|
|
meillo@8
|
199 They were mostly untouched throughout the years.
|
|
meillo@8
|
200 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
201 Despite the separation of the tool chest approach at the surface
|
|
meillo@106
|
202 \(en a collection of small, separate programs \(en
|
|
meillo@171
|
203 on the source code level, it is much more interwoven.
|
|
meillo@49
|
204 Several separate components were compiled into one program
|
|
meillo@51
|
205 for efficiency reasons.
|
|
meillo@106
|
206 This led to intricate innards.
|
|
meillo@106
|
207 While clearly separated on the outside,
|
|
meillo@171
|
208 the programs turned out to be fairly interwoven inside.
|
|
meillo@106
|
209 .\" XXX FIXME rewrite...
|
|
meillo@171
|
210 .\" nicht zweimal ``interwoven''
|
|
meillo@106
|
211 .\" Unfortunately, the clear separation on the outside turned out to be
|
|
meillo@171
|
212 .\" fairly interwoven inside.
|
|
meillo@8
|
213 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
214 The advent of MIME raised the complexity of email by a magnitude.
|
|
meillo@49
|
215 This is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones.
|
|
meillo@106
|
216 It is also visible that MIME support was added on top of the old MH core.
|
|
meillo@51
|
217 MH's tool chest style made this easily possible and encourages
|
|
meillo@106
|
218 such approaches, but unfortunately, it led to duplicated functions
|
|
meillo@49
|
219 and half-hearted implementation of the concepts.
|
|
meillo@49
|
220 .P
|
|
meillo@159
|
221 To provide backward-compatibility, it is a common understanding not to
|
|
meillo@49
|
222 change the default settings.
|
|
meillo@51
|
223 In consequence, the user needs to activate modern features explicitly
|
|
meillo@47
|
224 to be able to use them.
|
|
meillo@49
|
225 This puts a burden on new users, because out-of-the-box nmh remains
|
|
meillo@49
|
226 in the same ancient style.
|
|
meillo@171
|
227 If nmh is seen to be a back-end,
|
|
meillo@171
|
228 then this compatibility surely is important.
|
|
meillo@171
|
229 However, at the same time, new users have difficulties using nmh for
|
|
meillo@171
|
230 modern emailing.
|
|
meillo@173
|
231 The small but mature community around nmh needs little change
|
|
meillo@106
|
232 as they have had their convenient setups for decades.
|
|
meillo@159
|
233 .\" XXX Explain more
|
|
meillo@8
|
234
|
|
meillo@8
|
235
|
|
meillo@27
|
236 .H1 "mmh
|
|
meillo@28
|
237 .P
|
|
meillo@164
|
238 .\" XXX which version did I ``fork''?
|
|
meillo@49
|
239 I started to work on my experimental version in October 2011,
|
|
meillo@106
|
240 at a time when there had been no more than three commits to nmh
|
|
meillo@53
|
241 since the beginning of the year.
|
|
meillo@53
|
242 In December, when I announced my work in progress on the
|
|
meillo@53
|
243 nmh-workers mailing list,
|
|
meillo@42
|
244 .[
|
|
meillo@51
|
245 nmh-workers mmh announce December
|
|
meillo@42
|
246 .]
|
|
meillo@53
|
247 nmh's community became active, too.
|
|
meillo@49
|
248 This movement was heavily pushed by Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' comment.
|
|
meillo@42
|
249 .[
|
|
meillo@42
|
250 nmh-workers vixie edginess
|
|
meillo@42
|
251 .]
|
|
meillo@53
|
252 After long years of stagnation, nmh became actively developed again.
|
|
meillo@106
|
253 Hence, while I was working on mmh, the community was once more working
|
|
meillo@106
|
254 on nmh, in parallel.
|
|
meillo@164
|
255 .\" XXX interaction between nmh and mmh
|
|
meillo@28
|
256 .P
|
|
meillo@53
|
257 The name \fImmh\fP may stand for \fImodern mail handler\fP,
|
|
meillo@53
|
258 because the project tries to modernize nmh.
|
|
meillo@53
|
259 Personally however, I prefer to call mmh \fImeillo's mail handler\fP,
|
|
meillo@53
|
260 emphasizing that the project follows my visions and preferences.
|
|
meillo@42
|
261 (My login name is \fImeillo\fP.)
|
|
meillo@53
|
262 This project model was inspired by \fIdwm\fP,
|
|
meillo@159
|
263 .\" XXX Ref
|
|
meillo@42
|
264 which is Anselm Garbe's personal window manager \(en
|
|
meillo@42
|
265 targeted to satisfy Garbe's personal needs whenever conflicts appear.
|
|
meillo@53
|
266 Dwm had retained its lean elegance and its focused character, whereas
|
|
meillo@53
|
267 its community-driven predecessor \fIwmii\fP had grown fat over time.
|
|
meillo@159
|
268 .\" XXX ref
|
|
meillo@53
|
269 The development of mmh should remain focused.
|
|
meillo@27
|
270
|
|
meillo@45
|
271
|
|
meillo@27
|
272 .U2 "Motivation
|
|
meillo@27
|
273 .P
|
|
meillo@51
|
274 MH is the most important of very few command line tool chest email systems.
|
|
meillo@51
|
275 Tool chests are powerful because they can be perfectly automated and
|
|
meillo@53
|
276 extended. They allow arbitrary kinds of front-ends to be
|
|
meillo@53
|
277 implemented on top of them quickly and without internal knowledge.
|
|
meillo@106
|
278 Additionally, tool chests are easier to maintain than monolithic
|
|
meillo@43
|
279 programs.
|
|
meillo@53
|
280 As there are few tool chests for emailing and as MH-like ones are the most
|
|
meillo@106
|
281 popular among them, they should be developed further.
|
|
meillo@53
|
282 This keeps their
|
|
meillo@43
|
283 conceptional elegance and unique scripting qualities available to users.
|
|
meillo@106
|
284 Mmh creates a modern and convenient entry point to MH-like systems
|
|
meillo@53
|
285 for new and interested users.
|
|
meillo@43
|
286 .P
|
|
meillo@51
|
287 The mmh project is motivated by deficits of nmh and
|
|
meillo@45
|
288 my wish for general changes, combined
|
|
meillo@45
|
289 with the nmh community's reluctancy to change.
|
|
meillo@45
|
290 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
291 At that time, nmh had not adjusted to modern emailing needs well enough.
|
|
meillo@45
|
292 The default setup was completely unusable for modern emailing.
|
|
meillo@45
|
293 Too much setup work was required.
|
|
meillo@45
|
294 Several modern features were already available but the community
|
|
meillo@106
|
295 did not want to have them as default.
|
|
meillo@106
|
296 Mmh is a way to change this.
|
|
meillo@45
|
297 .P
|
|
meillo@45
|
298 In my eyes, MH's concepts could be exploited even better and
|
|
meillo@45
|
299 the style of the tools could be improved. Both would simplify
|
|
meillo@45
|
300 and generalize the system, providing cleaner interfaces and more
|
|
meillo@53
|
301 software leverage at the same time.
|
|
meillo@106
|
302 Mmh is a way to demonstrate this.
|
|
meillo@45
|
303 .P
|
|
meillo@45
|
304 In providing several parts of an email system, nmh can hardly
|
|
meillo@45
|
305 compete with the large specialized projects that focus
|
|
meillo@45
|
306 on only one of the components.
|
|
meillo@45
|
307 The situation can be improved by concentrating the development power
|
|
meillo@51
|
308 on the most unique part of MH and letting the user pick his preferred
|
|
meillo@45
|
309 set of other mail components.
|
|
meillo@45
|
310 Today's pre-packaged software components encourage this model.
|
|
meillo@106
|
311 Mmh is a way to go for this approach.
|
|
meillo@45
|
312 .P
|
|
meillo@106
|
313 It is worthwhile to fork nmh for the development of mmh, because
|
|
meillo@43
|
314 the two projects focus on different goals and differ in fundamental questions.
|
|
meillo@106
|
315 The nmh community's reluctance regarding change conflicts
|
|
meillo@106
|
316 with my strong desire for it.
|
|
meillo@43
|
317 In developing a separate experimental version new approaches can
|
|
meillo@43
|
318 easily be tried out without the need to discuss changes beforehand.
|
|
meillo@43
|
319 In fact, revolutionary changes are hardly possible otherwise.
|
|
meillo@43
|
320 .P
|
|
meillo@117
|
321 The mmh project provides the basis on which the aforementioned
|
|
meillo@117
|
322 ideas can be implemented and demonstrated,
|
|
meillo@164
|
323 without the need to change the nmh project or its community.
|
|
meillo@43
|
324 Of course, the results of the mmh project shall improve nmh, in the end.
|
|
meillo@159
|
325 By no means it is my intent to work against the nmh project.
|
|
meillo@117
|
326
|
|
meillo@27
|
327
|
|
meillo@27
|
328 .U2 "Target Field
|
|
meillo@27
|
329 .P
|
|
meillo@45
|
330 Any effort needs to be targeted towards a specific goal
|
|
meillo@45
|
331 in order to be successful.
|
|
meillo@117
|
332 Following is a description of imagined typical mmh users.
|
|
meillo@117
|
333 Mmh should satisfy their needs.
|
|
meillo@53
|
334 .\" XXX Remove the next sentence?
|
|
meillo@48
|
335 Actually, as mmh is my personal version of MH, this is a description
|
|
meillo@48
|
336 of myself.
|
|
meillo@45
|
337 .P
|
|
meillo@117
|
338 The target users of mmh like Unix and its philosophy.
|
|
meillo@117
|
339 They appreciate to use programs that are conceptionally appealing.
|
|
meillo@117
|
340 They are familiar with the command line and enjoy its power.
|
|
meillo@117
|
341 They are at least capable of shell scripting and want to improve their
|
|
meillo@27
|
342 productivity by scripting the mail system.
|
|
meillo@169
|
343 They use modern email features, such as attachments,
|
|
meillo@169
|
344 non-ASCII text, digital signatures and message encryption in a natural way.
|
|
meillo@117
|
345 They are able to setup email system components besides mmh,
|
|
meillo@117
|
346 and actually like to have the choice to pick the ones they prefer.
|
|
meillo@164
|
347 They have a reasonably modern operating system that complies to the
|
|
meillo@164
|
348 POSIX and ANSI C standards.
|
|
meillo@27
|
349 .P
|
|
meillo@117
|
350 The typical users invoke mmh commands directly in an interactive
|
|
meillo@117
|
351 shell session, but they use them to automate mail handling tasks as well.
|
|
meillo@159
|
352 Likely, they run their mail setup on a server machine,
|
|
meillo@117
|
353 to which they connect via ssh.
|
|
meillo@117
|
354 They might also have local mmh installations on their workstations,
|
|
meillo@117
|
355 where they tend to work with mmh directly in the shell instead
|
|
meillo@117
|
356 of using graphical front-ends.
|
|
meillo@117
|
357 They definitely want to be flexible and thus be able to change
|
|
meillo@117
|
358 their setup to suit their needs.
|
|
meillo@8
|
359 .P
|
|
meillo@117
|
360 .\" XXX themself vs. themselves
|
|
meillo@117
|
361 Typical mmh users are programmers themselves.
|
|
meillo@117
|
362 They like to, occasionally, take the opportunity of Free Software to put
|
|
meillo@117
|
363 hands on and get involved in the software they use.
|
|
meillo@117
|
364 Hence, they like small and clean code bases and care for code quality.
|
|
meillo@117
|
365 In general, they believe that:
|
|
meillo@8
|
366 .BU
|
|
meillo@48
|
367 Elegance \(en i.e. simplicity, clarity and generality \(en
|
|
meillo@48
|
368 is most important.
|
|
meillo@8
|
369 .BU
|
|
meillo@48
|
370 Concepts are more important than the concrete implementation.
|
|
meillo@8
|
371 .BU
|
|
meillo@48
|
372 Code optimizations for anything but readability should be avoided
|
|
meillo@48
|
373 if possible.
|
|
meillo@8
|
374 .BU
|
|
meillo@45
|
375 Having a lot of choice is bad.
|
|
meillo@48
|
376 .BU
|
|
meillo@48
|
377 Removed code is debugged code.
|
|
meillo@8
|
378
|
|
meillo@48
|
379 .U2 "Goals
|
|
meillo@45
|
380 .P
|
|
meillo@45
|
381 The general goals for the mmh project are the following:
|
|
meillo@128
|
382 .IP "Streamlining
|
|
meillo@87
|
383 Mmh should be stripped down to its core, which is the user agent (MUA).
|
|
meillo@117
|
384 The feature set should be distilled to the indispensable ones,
|
|
meillo@171
|
385 effectively removing corner cases.
|
|
meillo@173
|
386 Parts that do not add to the main task of being a conceptionally
|
|
meillo@53
|
387 appealing MUA should be removed.
|
|
meillo@117
|
388 This includes the mail submission and mail retrieval facilities.
|
|
meillo@48
|
389 Choice should be reduced to the main options.
|
|
meillo@131
|
390 All tools should be tightly shaped.
|
|
meillo@48
|
391 .IP "Modernizing
|
|
meillo@48
|
392 Mmh's feature set needs to become more modern.
|
|
meillo@164
|
393 Better support for attachments, digital signatures and message encryption
|
|
meillo@164
|
394 should be added.
|
|
meillo@159
|
395 MIME support should be integrated deeper and more naturally.
|
|
meillo@48
|
396 The modern email features need to be readily available, out-of-the-box.
|
|
meillo@117
|
397 On the other hand,
|
|
meillo@117
|
398 bulletin board support and similar obsolete facilities can be dropped out.
|
|
meillo@131
|
399 Likewise, ancient technologies should not be supported any further.
|
|
meillo@131
|
400 The available concepts need to be expanded as far as possible.
|
|
meillo@131
|
401 A small set of concepts should recur consistently.
|
|
meillo@131
|
402 .IP "Styling
|
|
meillo@48
|
403 Mmh's source code needs to be updated to modern standards.
|
|
meillo@48
|
404 Standardized library functions should replace non-standard versions
|
|
meillo@48
|
405 whenever possible.
|
|
meillo@117
|
406 Code should be separated into distinct modules when feasible.
|
|
meillo@48
|
407 Time and space optimizations should to be replaced by
|
|
meillo@48
|
408 clear and readable code.
|
|
meillo@48
|
409 A uniform programming style should prevail.
|
|
meillo@117
|
410 The whole system should appear to be of-one-style;
|
|
meillo@117
|
411 it should feel like being cast as one.
|
