docs/master: ch01.roff comparison

comparison ch01.roff @ 49:d3a02f5e63b3

Various rework.

author	markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
date	Sat, 19 May 2012 17:56:15 +0200
parents	eae5e50381ce
children	a446f89cc5d9

comparison

equal deleted inserted replaced

-:eae5e50381ce
+:d3a02f5e63b3
 .DE
 .H1 "nmh: Code and Community
 .P
-In order to understand the state, goals and dynamics of a project,
+In order to understand the condition, goals and dynamics of a project,
-one needs to know its history. MH predates the Internet,
+one needs to know the reasons.
-it comes from times before networking was universal,
+MH predates the Internet, it comes from times before networking was universal,
-times when emailing was small, short and simple.
+it comes from times when emailing was small, short and simple.
 Then it grew, spread and adopted to the changes email went through.
-The core-concepts, however, remained the same.
+Its core-concepts, however, remained the same.
-During the 80s a small group of students at the University of
+During the Eighties students at UCI actively worked on MH.
-California, actively worked on MH. They added features and optimized,
+They added new features and optimized the code for the then popular systems.
-like it is common for scientific work. This is still in pre-ANSI C
+All this still was in times before POSIX and ANSI C.
-times. The source code contains many ancient parts. Code constructs
+As large parts of the code stem from this time, today's nmh source code
-specific to BSD or hardware of that time are usual.
+still contains many ancient parts.
-.P
+BSD-specific code and constructs taylored for hardware of that time
-Nmh started eight years after the ANSI C standard had been
+are frequent.
-established. A more modern coding style entered the code base. Still
+.P
-a part of the developers come from ``the old days''. The developer
+Nmh started about a decade after the POSIX and ANSI C standards had been
-base became more diverse and thus the code had different style.
+established. A more modern coding style entered the code base, but still
-Programming practices
+a part of the developers came from ``the old days''. The developer
-from different decades merged into the project. Different coding
+base became more diverse and thus resulted in code of different style.
-styles came together. It appears as if multiple peers added code
+Programming practices from different decades merged in the project.
-parts, resulting in a conclomeration rather than a homogenic
+As several peers added code, the system became more a conclomeration
-of-one-cast mail system. Still, the basic concepts hold it together.
+of single tools rather than a homogenic of-one-cast mail system.
+Still, the existing basic concepts held it together.
 They were mostly untouched throughout the years.
 .P
-Although, at the surface, nmh is a toolchest, meaning a collection
+Despite the toolchest approach at the surface \(en a collection
-of completely modularized small programs, on the source code level,
+of separate small programs \(en on the source code level
-it is much more interweaved. Parts of the basic functions are
+it is much more interweaved.
-collected in a MH standard library, which is good, but often
+Several separate components were compiled into one program
-separate functions are compiled into programs, for effiency reasons.
+for effiency reasons.
 This lead to intricate innards.
-The advent of MIME rose the complexity of email by a magnitude. This
+Unfortunately, the clear separation on the outside appeared as being
-is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones.
+pretty interweaved inside.
-It's also visible that MIME support had been added on top of the
+.P
-old MH later. The MH style made this easily possible, but it
+The advent of MIME rose the complexity of email by a magnitude.
-also lead to duplicated functions (e.g. \fLshow\fP, \fLmhshow\fP)
+This is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones.
-and had not been thoroughly included into the concepts (e.g. the
+It's also visible that MIME support had been added on top of the old MH core.
-user-visible access to whole messages and MIME parts are inherently
+MH's toolchest style made this easily possible and encourages
-different).
+such approaches, but unfortunately, it lead to duplicated functions
-.P
+and half-hearted implementation of the concepts.
-For backward-compatibility's sake, it is a common understanding to have the
+.P
-default settings to be compatible, requiring any new feature to be
+To provide backward-compatibility, it is a common understanding to not
-explicitely enabled.
+change the default settings.
 In consequence, the user needs to activate modern features explicitely
 to be able to use them.
-This puts a burden on new users, because nmh
+This puts a burden on new users, because out-of-the-box nmh remains
-out-of-the-box keeps staying in the same ancient style, where users
+in the same ancient style.
-usually want to have it practical for modern emailing.
+If nmh is seen to be a back-end, then this compatibility surely is important.
-But of course, this depends if nmh is seen to be a front-end or a
+However, in the same go, new users have difficulties to use nmh for modern
-back-end.
+emailing.
+The small but matured community around nmh hardly needs much change
+as they have their convenient setups since decades.
 .H1 "mmh
 .P
-I started to work on my experimental version in Fall 2011.
+I started to work on my experimental version in October 2011,
+when there were no more than three commits to nmh in the previous nine months..
 In December, when I announced my work on the nmh-workers mailing list,
 .[
 nmh-workers mmh announce december
 .]
-the activity in nmh rose heavily.
+the activity in nmh rose much.
 Suddently the community started to move.
-This movement was pushed much by Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' message.
+This movement was heavily pushed by Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' comment.
 .[
 nmh-workers vixie edginess
 .]
 After long years of much stagnation, nmh became actively developed again.
 Hence, while I was working on mmh, the community was working on nmh,
 The name \fImmh\fP stands for \fImeillo's mail handler\fP,
 because mmh is my own version of MH.
 (My login name is \fImeillo\fP.)
 The project follows my personal considerations and preferences.
 By calling it a personal project, I don't need to justify my decisions,
-though, still I do.
+though, still I like to do.
 This enabled me to follow my vision staightly and thus produce
 a result of greater pureness.
 This project model was inspired by the window manager \fIdwm\fP,
 which is Anselm Garbe's personal window manager \(en
 targeted to satisfy Garbe's personal needs whenever conflicts appear.
 dwm had remained much more focused on its original goals,
 whereas its community-driven predecessor \fIwmii\fP had
-grown large and lost it's leanness.
+grown big and lost it's lean elegance.
 This should not happen to mmh.
 .P
-Mmh can also stand for \fImodern mail handler\fP, and this is
+Mmh also stands for \fImodern mail handler\fP, and this is
-the variant chosen as titel for this document. One main focus of the
+the variant chosen to entitel this document. One main focus of the
 project was to modernize nmh. Another main goal is resembled in the
 name \fIminimized mail handler\fP: Drop any parts that don't add
-to the main task of mmh, being a MUA.
+to the main task of mmh, being a conceptionally appealing MUA.
 .P
 It should also be noted that \fLstrcmp("mmh","nmh")<0\fP is true.
 Although mmh bases on nmh, it is likely seen as a step backward.
 I agree.
 However, this step backward actually is a step forward,
-although in another direction.
+although in a different direction.
 .H1 "This Thesis
 .U2 "Motivation

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comparison ch01.roff @ 49:d3a02f5e63b3