docs/master

annotate ch01.roff @ 20:7a100c80fa91

Some new text (show/mhshow; prompter).
author markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
date Sun, 06 May 2012 17:33:45 +0200
parents 34727751be7e
children b687d151eed3
rev   line source
meillo@0 1 .H0 "Introduction
meillo@0 2 .P
meillo@2 3 This chapter describes the background of the topics in this thesis.
meillo@2 4 General knowledge of electronic mail is assumed.
meillo@8 5 It explains the situation at the start of the project.
meillo@8 6 It tries to describe from what state the project lifted of and where
meillo@8 7 it headed to. This shall give an overview.
meillo@8 8
meillo@0 9
meillo@0 10 .H1 "What is MH?
meillo@0 11 .P
meillo@2 12 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
meillo@2 13 Historically, it had been a all-in-one mail system, with Mail Transfer
meillo@2 14 Agent (MTA) and Mail User Agent (MUA).
meillo@2 15 Later, when electronic mail systems changed, Mail Submission Agent (MSA)
meillo@2 16 and Mail Retrieval Agent (MRA) facilities were added.
meillo@2 17 The MTA became less important, whereas the MUA became even more the
meillo@2 18 central part.
meillo@2 19 .P
meillo@2 20 First of all, MH is a style of a mail handling system.
meillo@2 21 It had started as a design proposal, not as an implementation, and
meillo@2 22 had in spirit remained so. This is similar to Unix, which much less
meillo@2 23 is a specific software product, as it is a style of system design.
meillo@2 24
meillo@11 25 .U2 "History
meillo@2 26 .P
meillo@2 27 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
meillo@2 28 In 1977, Norman Shapiro and Stockton Gaines had proposed the design
meillo@2 29 of a new mail handling system, called ``Mail Handler'' (MH) for RAND,
meillo@2 30 to superseed their ``Mail System'' (MS).
meillo@2 31 Two years later, in 1979, XXX took the proposal and implemented a
meillo@2 32 prototype of MH. It proved successful and replaced MS thereafter.
meillo@2 33 .P
meillo@2 34 A decade later, the University of California had started to use MH.
meillo@2 35 They also took over its development and pushed MH forward.
meillo@2 36 This had been the time when the Internet appeared, Berkeley implemented
meillo@2 37 the TCP stack, and Sendmail was born. MH had often contained the first
meillo@2 38 implementation of new RFCs.
meillo@2 39 .P
meillo@2 40 In the nineties, MH had been moved into the public domain, making it
meillo@2 41 attractive to Free Software developers. The Internet had started to become
meillo@2 42 mainstream and in 1997, Richard Coleman initiated the ``New Mail Handler''
meillo@2 43 (nmh), a fork of MH. He intended to modernize MH, improve its MIME
meillo@2 44 capabilities, and this should be done openly within the Internet
meillo@2 45 community. Today, nmh almost completely replaced the original MH.
meillo@8 46 .P
meillo@9 47 Three versions of MH are available:
meillo@8 48 .BU
meillo@8 49 .B "Old MH" .
meillo@9 50 In most cases it has been replaced by nmh, but some systems still
meillo@9 51 provide old MH. As nmh is old MH-compatible, there exist few reasons
meillo@8 52 not to upgrade to new.
meillo@8 53 The development of old MH stopped almost completely.
meillo@8 54 .BU
meillo@8 55 .B Nmh .
meillo@8 56 The most widespread version of MH. Backward-compatible to old MH.
meillo@8 57 Provides new featues, which need to be activated explicitely.
meillo@8 58 Its development went slowly in the previous years, but had revived
meillo@8 59 in Fall 2011.
meillo@8 60 .BU
meillo@8 61 .B Mmh
meillo@8 62 A descendent of nmh. Had started as a non-compatible experimental
meillo@8 63 version, but became de facto a fork. Tries to expand the same
meillo@9 64 principle concepts in a more modern way. This version of MH is the
meillo@8 65 subject of this thesis.
meillo@0 66
meillo@11 67 .U2 "Concepts
meillo@0 68 .P
meillo@8 69 MH is a toolchest, modelled after the Unix toolchest. It consists of a
meillo@8 70 bunch of tools, each covering one task of email handling. These programs
meillo@8 71 operate on a common mail storage. The specific format of the mail storage
meillo@8 72 also defines MH, like the file system structure defines Unix. It
meillo@8 73 consists of directories (mail folders) and files (mail messages).
meillo@8 74 Each file contains exactly one message in the format it had been
meillo@8 75 received (i.e. transfer format). MH tools carry a state (context),
meillo@8 76 consisting of current mail folder and current message. Messages can
meillo@8 77 have symbolic names, like the next or last message or for some
meillo@8 78 arbitrary group of messages. These names are called sequences.
meillo@2 79 .P
meillo@8 80 New MH tools can be build out of existing ones easily. Default values to
meillo@8 81 commands are stored on a command name-basis, making it trivial to have
meillo@8 82 different versions of the same command with different defaults. Most
meillo@8 83 of the configuration is stored in the user's profile. Form templates,
meillo@8 84 e.g. for new messages or replies, are exchangeable and output is generally
meillo@8 85 adjustable with format files.
meillo@2 86 .P
meillo@8 87 MH allows the user to automate almost everything and to modify amost
meillo@8 88 any behavior. The system is scriptable and extendable.
meillo@8 89
meillo@8 90
meillo@8 91 .H1 "Understanding of the Code and Community
meillo@2 92 .P
meillo@8 93 In order to understand the state, goals and dynamics of a project,
meillo@8 94 one needs to know its history. MH comes from a time before the
meillo@8 95 Internet, a time before networking became universal, a time when
meillo@8 96 emailing was small, short and simple. Then it grew, spread and
meillo@8 97 adopted to the changes. The core-concepts, however, remained the
meillo@8 98 same. During the XXX a small group of students at the University of
meillo@8 99 California, actively worked on MH. They added features and optimized,
meillo@8 100 like it is common for scientific work. This is still in pre-ANSI C
meillo@8 101 times. The source code contains many ancient parts. Code constructs
meillo@8 102 specific to BSD or hardware of that time are usual.
meillo@2 103 .P
meillo@8 104 Nmh started eight years after the ANSI C standard had been
meillo@8 105 established. A more modern coding style entered the code base. Still
meillo@8 106 a part of the developers come from ``the old days''. The developer
meillo@8 107 base became more diverse and thus the code. Programming practices
meillo@8 108 from different decades merged into the project. Different coding
meillo@8 109 styles came together. It appears as if multiple peers added code
meillo@8 110 parts, resulting in a conclomeration rather than an homogenic
meillo@8 111 of-one-cast mail system. Still, the basic concepts hold it together.
meillo@8 112 They were mostly untouched throughout the years.
meillo@8 113 .P
meillo@8 114 Although, at the surface, nmh is a toolchest, meaning a collection
meillo@8 115 of completely modularized small programs, on the source code level,
meillo@8 116 it is much more interweaved. Parts of the basic functions are
meillo@8 117 collected in a MH standard library, which is good, but often
meillo@8 118 separate functions are compiled into programs, for effiency reasons.
meillo@8 119 This lead to intricate innards.
meillo@8 120 The advent of MIME rose the complexity of email by a magnitude. This
meillo@8 121 is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones.
meillo@8 122 It's also visible that MIME support had been added on top of the
meillo@8 123 original MH later. The MH style made this easily possible, but it
meillo@8 124 also lead to duplicated functions (e.g. \fLshow\fP, \fLmhshow\fP)
meillo@8 125 and had not been thoroughly included into the concepts (e.g. the
meillo@8 126 user-visible access to whole messages and MIME parts are inherently
meillo@8 127 different).
meillo@8 128 .P
meillo@8 129 For compatibility's sake, it is a common understanding to have the
meillo@8 130 default settings to be compatible, requiring any new feature to be
meillo@8 131 explicitely enabled. This puts a burden on new users, because nmh
meillo@8 132 out-of-the-box keeps staying in the same ancient style, where users
meillo@8 133 usually want to have it practical for modern emailing.
meillo@8 134 But of course, this depends on if nmh is seen to be a front-end or a
meillo@8 135 back-end.
meillo@8 136
meillo@8 137
meillo@8 138 .H1 "My Vision
meillo@8 139 .P
meillo@8 140 The general goals of the mmh project are the following:
meillo@8 141 .BU
meillo@8 142 I believe that mmh should be perfectly suited for modern emailing,
meillo@8 143 out-of-the-box.
meillo@8 144 .BU
meillo@8 145 I care less about compatibility and more about conceptionally elegant
meillo@8 146 approaches.
meillo@8 147 .BU
meillo@8 148 I care for general, clear, and simple concepts.
meillo@8 149 .BU
meillo@8 150 I like to create an of-one-style email system. It should feel like
meillo@8 151 cast as one.
meillo@8 152 .BU
meillo@8 153 I plan to remove any optimizations that rises obscurity, unless it
meillo@8 154 appears to be neccessary to make mmh usable at all.
meillo@8 155 .P
meillo@8 156 .B "The target user in mind
meillo@8 157 likes Unix and its philosophy.
meillo@8 158 He likes to use programs that are conceptionally appealing.
meillo@8 159 He's familiar with the command line and enjoys its power.
meillo@8 160 He is at least capable of shell scripting and wants to improve his
meillo@8 161 productivity by scripting the mail system.
meillo@8 162 His computer and operating system are from post-ANSI C times.
meillo@8 163 He likes to attach files, exchanges text containing non-ASCII
meillo@8 164 characters, signs or encrypts his messages.
meillo@8 165 He does not use bulletin boards anymore, nor non-mbox style mail
meillo@8 166 drops, nor does he rely on compatibility to nmh.
meillo@8 167 He already has and MTA/MSA and MRA running or is able to set them
meillo@8 168 up.
meillo@8 169 He does not want to have to read a book in order to make his MUA
meillo@8 170 usable.
meillo@8 171
meillo@8 172
meillo@8 173 .H1 "Things to do
meillo@8 174 .BU
meillo@8 175 Remove any MTA and MRA facilities. Mmh shall concentrate on the MUA
meillo@8 176 task. Mail shall enter mmh's mail storage via the system mail drop
meillo@8 177 and it shall leave mmh via the local \fLsendmail\fP command.
meillo@8 178 .BU
meillo@8 179 Remove any further functions that are not related to mmh's main task.
meillo@8 180 Bulletin board support is on example. Also remove support for ancient
meillo@8 181 technologies, like hardcopy terminals.
meillo@8 182 .BU
meillo@8 183 Refactor the source code to meet modern style criteria. Use
meillo@8 184 standardized library functions when possible.
meillo@8 185 .BU
meillo@8 186 Replace performance optimizations by clear and readable code.
meillo@8 187 .BU
meillo@8 188 Reduce the feature set to the commonly used one, removing
meillo@8 189 corner-cases. Set sane default values.
meillo@8 190 .BU
meillo@8 191 Add better attachment support. Add support for digital signatures and
meillo@8 192 encryption.
meillo@8 193 .BU
meillo@8 194 Merge \fLshow\fP and \fLmhshow\fP into one single mail display program.
meillo@8 195 Integrate MIME support deeper and more natural into MH.
meillo@8 196 .BU
meillo@8 197 Provide a ready-to-use setup out-of-the-box.