docs/master
view preface.roff @ 31:029e11dd4de1
Rework in Preface.
| author | markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 14 May 2012 11:11:24 +0200 |
| parents | d996f130e279 |
| children | 2fea9739507f |
line source
1 .H0 "Preface" no
3 .P
4 MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, like
5 the Unix toolchest is a set of file handling tools with a common
6 concept. nmh is the currently most popular implementation of an
7 MH-like mail handling system.
8 This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh,
9 named \fImmh\fP.
10 The project goals for mmh are modernizing, stream-lining and exploiting
11 MH's concepts even more thoroughly.
13 .U2 "Background to this Thesis
14 .P
15 I have discovered nmh in September 2009. At that time I used to use the
16 mail client \fImutt\fP, like many advanced Unix users do.
17 As I read about nmh, its concepts had convinced me at once.
18 Learning its different model of email handling had been relatively easy,
19 because my starting situation was being convinced of the concepts.
20 The transition from mutt to nmh was similar to
21 managing files in the Unix shell when being used to graphical file
22 managers, or like editing with vi when being used to modeless editors.
23 Such a change is not trivial, but in being convinced by the
24 concepts and by having done similar transitions for file management
25 and editing already, it was not too difficult neither.
26 In contrast, setting up nmh to a convenient state became a tendious task
27 that took several months.
28 .P
29 Once having nmh arranged to a convenient state, I enjoyed using it
30 because of its conceptional elegance and its scripting capabilities.
31 On the other hand, however, it still was
32 inconvenient for handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings,
33 and similar features of modern emailing.
34 My setup demanded more and more additional configuration and helper scripts
35 to get nmh behave the way I wanted, although my
36 expectations were rather common for modern emailing.
37 In being a computer scientist and programmer,
38 I wanted to improve the situation.
39 .P
40 In Spring 2010, I asked on the \fInmh-workers\fP mailing list for the
41 possibility to offer a Google Summer of Code project.
42 Participating in the development this way appeared attractive to me,
43 as it would have been possible to have the project
44 accepted at university. Although generally the nmh community
45 had been positive on the
46 suggestion, the administrative work had been to much, eventually.
47 But my proposal had activated the nmh community.
48 In the following weeks, goals for nmh's future were discussed.
49 In these discussions, I became involved in the
50 question whether nmh should be an MTA. (Thread subject:
51 ``should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?''.)
52 In this central point, my opinion differed from the opinion of most others.
53 I argued for the MTA facility of nmh to be removed.
54 Besides the discussions, hardly any real work was done.
55 Being unable to work on nmh in a way that would be
56 accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to choose another project.
57 .P
58 Half a year later, starting in August 2010,
59 I took one semester off to travel through Latin America.
60 Within this time, I had to do practical computer work for three months.
61 This brought me back to nmh.
62 Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for
63 me to work on nmh. Juan Granda, living in Santiago del
64 Estero in Argentina, provided a computer with Internet connection for
65 my work. Thanks to them, I was able to work on nmh during my three-month
66 stay in Argentina.
67 Within this time, I became familiar with nmh's code base and
68 community. I learned how things work. Quickly it became obvious that
69 I wouldn't succeed with my main goal: improving the character
70 encoding handling within the project. One of its ramifications is the
71 missing transfer decoding of quoted text in replies.
72 As this is one of the most intricate parts of the system, the goal
73 was simply set too high. Hence, I dropped the original plan.
74 Instead, I improved the code base as I read through it. I found minor bugs
75 for which I proposed fixes to the community. In the same go, I
76 improved the documentation in minor ways. When I started with
77 larger code changes, I had to discover that the community was reluctant
78 to change. Its wish for compatibility was much stronger than its
79 wish for convenient out-of-the-box setups \(en in contrast to my opinion.
80 This lead to long discussions, again.
81 I came to understand their point of view, but it is different to mine.
82 At the end of my three-month project, I had become familiar with
83 nmh's code base and community. I had improved the project in minor ways,
84 and I still was convinced that I wanted to go on to do so.
85 .P
86 Another half a year later, the end of my studies came within reach.
87 I needed a topic for my master's thesis.
88 There was no question: I wanted to work on nmh.
89 But well, not exactly on nmh,
90 because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals
91 than I have. This would result in much discussion and thus little progress.
92 After careful thought, I decided to start an experimental version of nmh.
93 I wanted to implement my own ideas of how an MH-like system should look like.
94 I wanted to see where that would lead to.
95 I wanted to create a usable alternative version to be compared with
96 the present state of nmh.
97 My work should be proved successful or failed.
98 The nmh project would not be hurt by my work, but
99 it would profit from my experiences.
101 .U2 "Focus of this Document
102 .P
103 This document describes my work on the experimental nmh version, named
104 \fImmh\fP. It explains the changes to nmh, with focus on their reasons.
105 It discusses technical, historical, social and philosophical considerations.
106 On the technical side, this document
107 explains how an existing project was stream-lined by removing rough edges
108 and exploiting the central concepts better.
109 On the historical
110 side, changes through time in the use cases and the email features,
111 as well as the reactions to them, are discussed.
112 Socially, this document describes the effects
113 and experiences of a newcomer with revolutionary aims entering an old
114 and matured software projects.
115 Finally, philosophical thoughts on style, mainly based to the Unix philosophy,
116 are present throughout the discussions.
117 .P
118 This document is written for the community around MH-like mail systems,
119 including developers and users.
120 First of all, the document shall explain the design goals and
121 implementation decisions for mmh. But as well, it shall clarify my
122 personal perception of the
123 concepts of MH and Unix, and explain my therefrom resulting point of view.
124 Despite the focus on MH-like systems, this document may be worthwhile
125 to anyone interested in the Unix philosophy and anyone in contact to
126 old software projects, be it code or community-related.
127 .P
128 The reader is expected to have good knowledge of Unix, C and emailing.
129 Good Unix shell
130 knowledge, including shell scripting, is required. MH relies fundamentally
131 on the shell. Without the power of the shell, MH becomes a motorbike
132 without winding roads: boring.
133 Introductions to Unix and its shell can be found in ``The UNIX Programming
134 Environment'' by Kernighan and Pike or ``The UNIX System'' by Bourne.
135 The reader is
136 expected to be familiar with the C programming language, although the
137 document should be understandable without knowledge of C, too.
138 ``The C Programming Language'' by Kernighan and Ritchie is the
139 definitive guide to C.
140 Some book about system-level C programming is worthwile additional
141 literature. Rochkind and Curry have written such books.
142 As large parts of the code are old, old books are likely more helpful
143 to understanding.
144 The format of email messages as well as the structure of email transfer
145 systems should be familiar to the reader, at least on a basic level.
146 It's advisable to have at least cross-read the RFCs 821 and 822.
147 Further more, basic understanding of MIME is good to have.
148 The Wikipedia provides good introduction-level information to email.
149 Frequent references to the Unix philosophy will be made.
150 Gancarz had tried to sum the philosophy up in his book ``The UNIX Philosophy''.
151 Even better but less concrete are ``The UNIX Programming Environment'' and
152 ``The Practice of Programming'' by Kernighan and Pike.
153 The term paper ``Why the Unix Philosophy still matters'' by myself
154 provides an overview on the topic, including a case study of MH.
155 Although a brief introduction to MH is provided in Chapter 1, the reader
156 is encouraged to have a look at the \fIMH Book\fP by Jerry Peek.
157 It is the definitive guide to MH and nmh.
158 The current version is available freely on the Internet.
159 .P
160 This document is neither a user's tutorial to mmh nor an introduction
161 to any of the topics covered. It discusses Unix, email
162 and system design on an advanced level.
163 However, as knowledge of the fundamental concepts is the most valuable
164 information a user can aquire about some program or software system,
165 this document might be worth a read for non-developers as well.
168 .U2 "Organization
169 .P
170 Which font for what use.
171 Meaning of `foo(1)'.
172 RFCs.
173 MH vs. nmh vs. mmh.
174 .P
175 This thesis is devided into XXX chapters, ...
176 .P
177 .I Chapter 1
178 introduces ...
179 .P
180 .I Chapter 2
181 describes ...
182 .P
183 .I Chapter 3
184 covers ...
187 .U2 "Acknowledgments
188 .P
189 To be written at the very end.
192 .\" End or Preface. Start of the normal text.
193 .\" Switch to arabic page numbers and start on a right page.
194 .
195 .if e \{
196 . pn 1
197 . af PN 1
198 .\}
199 .if o \{
200 . pn 0
201 . af PN 0
202 . bp
203 .\}