Mercurial > docs > master
annotate ch01.roff @ 55:89e7a32d1f10
bib: Added yet missing refs.
author | markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> |
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date | Sun, 20 May 2012 21:46:00 +0200 |
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1 .RN 1 |
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3 .H0 "Introduction |
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4 .P |
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5 MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, similar to |
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6 the Unix tool chest, which is a set of file handling tools with a common |
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7 concept. \fInmh\fP is the currently most popular implementation of an |
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8 MH-like mail handling system. |
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9 This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh, named \fImmh\fP. |
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10 .P |
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11 This chapter introduces MH, its history, concepts and how it is used. |
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12 It describes nmh's code base and community to give the reader |
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13 a better understanding of the state from which mmh started off. |
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14 Further more, this chapter outlines the mmh project itself, |
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15 describing the motivation for it and its goals. |
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16 |
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17 |
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18 .H1 "MH \(en the Mail Handler |
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19 .P |
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20 MH is a conceptual email system design and its concrete implementation. |
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21 Notably, MH had started as a design proposal at RAND Corporation, |
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22 where the first implementation followed later. |
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23 In spirit, MH is similar to Unix, which |
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24 influenced the world more in being a set of system design concepts |
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25 than in being a specific software product. |
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26 The ideas behind Unix are summarized in the \fIUnix philosophy\fP. |
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27 MH follows this philosophy. |
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28 |
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29 .U2 "History |
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30 .P |
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31 In 1977 at RAND Corporation, Norman Shapiro and Stockton Gaines |
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32 had proposed the design |
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33 of a new mail handling system, called ``Mail Handler'' (MH), |
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34 to superseed RAND's old monolithic ``Mail System'' (MS). |
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35 Two years later, in 1979, Bruce Borden took the proposal and implemented a |
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36 prototype of MH. |
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37 Before the prototype had been available, the concept was |
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38 believed to be practically unusable. |
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39 But the prototype had proven successful and replaced MS thereafter. |
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40 In replacing MS, MH grew to an all-in-one mail system. |
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41 .P |
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42 In the early Eighties, |
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43 the University of California at Irvine (UCI) had started to use MH. |
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44 They also took over its development and pushed MH forward. |
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45 Marshall T. Rose and John L. Romine became the driving force then. |
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46 This was the time when the Internet appeared, when UCB implemented |
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47 the TCP/IP stack, and when Allman wrote Sendmail. |
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48 MH was extended as emailing became more featured. |
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49 The development of MH was closely related to the development of email |
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50 RFCs. In the advent of MIME, MH was the first implementation of this new |
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51 email standard. |
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52 .P |
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53 In the Nineties, MH had been moved into the public domain, making it |
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54 attractive to Free Software developers. |
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55 The Internet had became popular and in December 1996, |
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56 Richard Coleman initiated the ``New Mail Handler'' (nmh) project. |
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57 The project is a fork of MH 6.8.3 and bases strongly on the |
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58 \fILBL changes\fP by Van Jacobson, Mike Karels and Craig Leres. |
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59 Colman intended to modernize MH and improve its portability and |
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60 MIME handling capabilities. |
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61 This should be done openly within the Internet community. |
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62 The development of MH at UCI stopped after the 6.8.4 release in |
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63 February 1996, soon after the development of nmh had started. |
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64 Today, nmh almost completely replaces the original MH. |
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65 Some systems might still provide old MH, but mainly for historical reasons. |
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66 .P |
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67 In the last years, the work on nmh was mostly maintenance work. |
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68 However, the development revived in December 2011 and stayed busy since then. |
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69 |
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70 .U2 "Concepts |
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71 .P |
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72 MH consists of a set of tools, each covering a specific task of |
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73 email handling, like composing a message, replying to a message, |
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74 refiling a message to a different folder, listing the messages in a folder. |
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75 All of the programs operate on a common mail storage. |
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76 .P |
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77 The mail storage consists of \fImail folders\fP (directories) and |
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78 \fPmessages\fP (regular files). |
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79 Each message is stored in a separate file in the format it had been |
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80 received (i.e. transfer format). |
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81 The files are named with ascending numbers in each folder. |
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82 The specific format of the mail storage characterizes MH in the same way |
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83 like the format of the file system characterizes Unix. |
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84 .P |
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85 MH tools maintain a \fIcontext\fP, which includes the current mail folder. |
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86 Processes in Unix have a similar context, containing the current working |
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87 directory, for instance. In contrast, the process context is maintained |
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88 by the Unix kernel automatically, whereas MH tools need to maintain the MH |
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89 context themselves. |
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90 The user can have one MH context or multiple ones, he can even share it |
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91 with other users. |
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92 .P |
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93 Messages are named by their numeric filename, but they can have symbolic names, |
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94 too. These are either automatically updated |
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95 position names like being the next or the last message, |
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96 or user-settable group names for arbitrary sets of messages. |
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97 These names are called sequences. |
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98 Sequences can be bound to the containing folder or to the context. |
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99 .P |
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100 The user's \fIprofile\fP is a file that contains his MH configuration. |
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101 Default switches for the individual tools can be specified to |
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102 adjust them to the user's personal preferences. |
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103 Multiple versions of the same command with different |
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104 default values can also be created very easily. |
51 | 105 Form templates for new messages or for replies are easily changeable, |
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106 and output is adjustable with format files. |
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107 Almost every part of the system can be adjusted to personal preference. |
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108 .P |
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110 New MH tools are built out of or on top of existing ones quickly. |
51 | 111 Further more, MH encourages the user to tailor, extend and automate the system. |
112 As the MH tool chest was modeled after the Unix tool chest, the | |
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113 properties of the latter apply to the former as well. |
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114 |
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115 .U2 "Using MH |
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116 .P |
54
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117 It is strongly recommended to have a look at the MH Book, |
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118 which introduces well into using MH. |
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119 .[ [ |
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120 peek mh book |
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121 .], Part II] |
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122 Rose and Romine provide a deeper and more technical |
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123 though slightly outdated introduction in only about two dozens pages. |
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124 .[ |
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125 rose romine real work |
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126 .] |
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127 .P |
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128 Following is an example mail handling session. |
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129 It uses mmh but is mostly compatible with nmh and old MH. |
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130 Details might vary but the look'n'feel is the same. |
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131 .DS |
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132 $ \f(CBinc\fP |
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133 Incorporating new mail into inbox... |
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134 |
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135 1+ 2012-05-16 11:16 meillo@dream.home Hello |
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136 2 2012-05-16 11:17 meillo@dream.home book |
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137 |
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138 $ \f(CBshow\fP |
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139 Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 11:16:00 +0200 |
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140 To: meillo |
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141 From: <meillo@dream.home.schnalke.org> |
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142 Subject: Hello |
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143 |
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144 part text/plain 13 |
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145 mmh is great |
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146 |
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147 $ \f(CBnext\fP |
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148 Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 11:17:24 +0200 |
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149 To: meillo |
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150 From: <meillo@dream.home.schnalke.org> |
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151 Subject: book |
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152 |
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153 part text/plain 79 |
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154 Hello meillo, |
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155 |
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156 have a look at the ``Daemon book''. You need to read that! |
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157 |
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158 foo |
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159 |
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160 $ \f(CBrmm 1\fP |
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161 |
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162 $ \f(CBscan\fP |
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163 2+ 2012-05-16 11:17 meillo@dream.home book |
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164 |
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165 $ |
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166 .DE |
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167 |
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168 |
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169 .H1 "nmh: Code and Community |
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170 .P |
49 | 171 In order to understand the condition, goals and dynamics of a project, |
172 one needs to know the reasons. | |
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173 This section explains the background. |
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174 .P |
49 | 175 MH predates the Internet, it comes from times before networking was universal, |
176 it comes from times when emailing was small, short and simple. | |
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177 Then it grew, spread and adopted to the changes email went through. |
49 | 178 Its core-concepts, however, remained the same. |
179 During the Eighties students at UCI actively worked on MH. | |
180 They added new features and optimized the code for the then popular systems. | |
181 All this still was in times before POSIX and ANSI C. | |
182 As large parts of the code stem from this time, today's nmh source code | |
183 still contains many ancient parts. | |
51 | 184 BSD-specific code and constructs tailored for hardware of that time |
49 | 185 are frequent. |
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186 .P |
49 | 187 Nmh started about a decade after the POSIX and ANSI C standards had been |
188 established. A more modern coding style entered the code base, but still | |
189 a part of the developers came from ``the old days''. The developer | |
190 base became more diverse and thus resulted in code of different style. | |
191 Programming practices from different decades merged in the project. | |
51 | 192 As several peers added code, the system became more a conglomeration |
193 of single tools rather than a homogeneous of-one-cast mail system. | |
49 | 194 Still, the existing basic concepts held it together. |
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195 They were mostly untouched throughout the years. |
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196 .P |
51 | 197 Despite the tool chest approach at the surface \(en a collection |
49 | 198 of separate small programs \(en on the source code level |
199 it is much more interweaved. | |
200 Several separate components were compiled into one program | |
51 | 201 for efficiency reasons. |
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202 This lead to intricate innards. |
49 | 203 Unfortunately, the clear separation on the outside appeared as being |
204 pretty interweaved inside. | |
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205 .P |
49 | 206 The advent of MIME rose the complexity of email by a magnitude. |
207 This is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones. | |
208 It's also visible that MIME support had been added on top of the old MH core. | |
51 | 209 MH's tool chest style made this easily possible and encourages |
49 | 210 such approaches, but unfortunately, it lead to duplicated functions |
211 and half-hearted implementation of the concepts. | |
212 .P | |
213 To provide backward-compatibility, it is a common understanding to not | |
214 change the default settings. | |
51 | 215 In consequence, the user needs to activate modern features explicitly |
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216 to be able to use them. |
49 | 217 This puts a burden on new users, because out-of-the-box nmh remains |
218 in the same ancient style. | |
219 If nmh is seen to be a back-end, then this compatibility surely is important. | |
220 However, in the same go, new users have difficulties to use nmh for modern | |
221 emailing. | |
222 The small but matured community around nmh hardly needs much change | |
223 as they have their convenient setups since decades. | |
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224 |
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225 |
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226 .H1 "mmh |
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227 .P |
49 | 228 I started to work on my experimental version in October 2011, |
53
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229 at a time when there were no more than three commits to nmh |
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230 since the beginning of the year. |
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231 In December, when I announced my work in progress on the |
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232 nmh-workers mailing list, |
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233 .[ |
51 | 234 nmh-workers mmh announce December |
42
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235 .] |
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236 nmh's community became active, too. |
49 | 237 This movement was heavily pushed by Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' comment. |
42
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238 .[ |
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239 nmh-workers vixie edginess |
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240 .] |
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241 After long years of stagnation, nmh became actively developed again. |
42
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242 Hence, while I was working on mmh, the community was working on nmh, |
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243 in parallel. |
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244 .P |
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245 The name \fImmh\fP may stand for \fImodern mail handler\fP, |
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246 because the project tries to modernize nmh. |
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247 Personally however, I prefer to call mmh \fImeillo's mail handler\fP, |
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248 emphasizing that the project follows my visions and preferences. |
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249 (My login name is \fImeillo\fP.) |
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250 This project model was inspired by \fIdwm\fP, |
42
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251 which is Anselm Garbe's personal window manager \(en |
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252 targeted to satisfy Garbe's personal needs whenever conflicts appear. |
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253 Dwm had retained its lean elegance and its focused character, whereas |
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254 its community-driven predecessor \fIwmii\fP had grown fat over time. |
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255 The development of mmh should remain focused. |
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256 |
45 | 257 |
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258 .U2 "Motivation |
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259 .P |
51 | 260 MH is the most important of very few command line tool chest email systems. |
261 Tool chests are powerful because they can be perfectly automated and | |
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262 extended. They allow arbitrary kinds of front-ends to be |
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263 implemented on top of them quickly and without internal knowledge. |
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264 Additionally, tool chests are much better to maintain than monolithic |
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265 programs. |
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266 As there are few tool chests for emailing and as MH-like ones are the most |
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267 popular among them they should be developed further. |
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268 This keeps their |
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269 conceptional elegance and unique scripting qualities available to users. |
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270 Mmh will create a modern and convenient entry point to MH-like systems |
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271 for new and interested users. |
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272 .P |
51 | 273 The mmh project is motivated by deficits of nmh and |
45 | 274 my wish for general changes, combined |
275 with the nmh community's reluctancy to change. | |
276 .P | |
277 nmh hadn't adjusted to modern emailing needs well enough. | |
278 The default setup was completely unusable for modern emailing. | |
279 Too much setup work was required. | |
280 Several modern features were already available but the community | |
281 didn't wanted to have them as default. | |
282 mmh is a way to change this. | |
283 .P | |
284 In my eyes, MH's concepts could be exploited even better and | |
285 the style of the tools could be improved. Both would simplify | |
286 and generalize the system, providing cleaner interfaces and more | |
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287 software leverage at the same time. |
45 | 288 mmh is a way to demonstrate this. |
289 .P | |
290 In providing several parts of an email system, nmh can hardly | |
291 compete with the large specialized projects that focus | |
292 on only one of the components. | |
293 The situation can be improved by concentrating the development power | |
51 | 294 on the most unique part of MH and letting the user pick his preferred |
45 | 295 set of other mail components. |
296 Today's pre-packaged software components encourage this model. | |
297 mmh is a way to go for this approach. | |
298 .P | |
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299 It's worthwhile to fork nmh for the development of mmh, because |
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300 the two projects focus on different goals and differ in fundamental questions. |
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301 The nmh community's reluctance to change conflicts |
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302 with my strong will to change. |
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303 In developing a separate experimental version new approaches can |
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304 easily be tried out without the need to discuss changes beforehand. |
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305 In fact, revolutionary changes are hardly possible otherwise. |
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306 .P |
45 | 307 The mmh project provides the basis to implemented and demonstrated |
308 the listed ideas without the need to change nmh or its community. | |
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309 Of course, the results of the mmh project shall improve nmh, in the end. |
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310 |
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311 .U2 "Target Field |
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312 .P |
45 | 313 Any effort needs to be targeted towards a specific goal |
314 in order to be successful. | |
315 Following is a description of the imagined typical mmh user. | |
316 mmh should satisfy his needs. | |
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317 .\" XXX Remove the next sentence? |
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318 Actually, as mmh is my personal version of MH, this is a description |
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319 of myself. |
45 | 320 .P |
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321 The target user of mmh likes Unix and its philosophy. |
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322 He likes to use programs that are conceptionally appealing. |
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323 He's familiar with the command line and enjoys its power. |
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324 He is at least capable of shell scripting and wants to improve his |
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325 productivity by scripting the mail system. |
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326 He naturally uses modern email features, like attachments, |
51 | 327 non-ASCII text, and digital cryptography. |
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328 He is able to setup email system components besides mmh, |
51 | 329 and actually likes the choice to pick the ones he prefers. |
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330 He has a reasonably modern system that complies to standards, |
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331 like POSIX and ANSI C. |
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332 .P |
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333 The typical user invokes mmh commands directly in an interactive |
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334 shell session, but as well, he uses them to automate mail handling tasks. |
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335 Likely, he runs his mail setup on a server machine, to which he connects |
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336 via ssh. He might also have local mmh installations on his workstations, |
51 | 337 but does rather not rely on graphical front-ends. He definitely wants |
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338 to be flexible and thus be able to change his setup to suite his needs. |
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339 .P |
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340 The typical mmh user is a programmer himself. |
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341 He likes to, occasionally, take the opportunity of Free Software to put |
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342 hands on and get involved in the software he uses. |
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343 Hence, he likes small and clean code bases and he cares for code quality. |
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344 In general, he believes that: |
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345 .BU |
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346 Elegance \(en i.e. simplicity, clarity and generality \(en |
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347 is most important. |
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348 .BU |
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349 Concepts are more important than the concrete implementation. |
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350 .BU |
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351 Code optimizations for anything but readability should be avoided |
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352 if possible. |
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353 .BU |
45 | 354 Having a lot of choice is bad. |
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355 .BU |
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356 Removed code is debugged code. |
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357 |
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358 .U2 "Goals |
45 | 359 .P |
360 The general goals for the mmh project are the following: | |
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361 .IP "Stream-lining |
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362 Mmh should be stripped down to its core, which is the MUA part of emailing. |
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363 The feature set should be distilled to the ones really needed, |
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364 effectively removing corner-cases. |
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365 Parts that don't add to the main task of being a conceptionally |
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366 appealing MUA should be removed. |
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367 This includes, the MTA and MRA facilities. |
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368 Choice should be reduced to the main options. |
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369 .IP "Modernizing |
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370 Mmh's feature set needs to become more modern. |
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371 Better support for attachment and digital cryptography needs to be added. |
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372 MIME support needs to be integrated deeper and more naturally. |
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373 The modern email features need to be readily available, out-of-the-box. |
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374 And on the other hand, |
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375 bulletin board support and similar obsolete facilities need to be dropped |
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376 out. |
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377 Likewise, ancient technologies, like hardcopy terminals, should not |
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378 be supported any further. |
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379 .IP "Code style |
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380 Mmh's source code needs to be updated to modern standards. |
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381 Standardized library functions should replace non-standard versions |
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382 whenever possible. |
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383 Code should be separated into distinct modules when possible. |
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384 Time and space optimizations should to be replaced by |
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385 clear and readable code. |
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386 A uniform programming style should prevail. |
51 | 387 .IP "Homogeneity |
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388 The available concepts need to be expanded as far as possible. |
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389 A small set of concepts should prevail thoroughly throughout the system. |
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390 The whole system should appear to be of-one-style. |
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391 It should feel like being cast as one. |