.H0 "Preface" no

.P
MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, like
the Unix toolchest is a set of file handling tools with a common
concept. nmh is the currently most popular implementation of an
MH-like mail handling system.
This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh,
named \fImmh\fP.
The project goals for mmh are modernizing, stream-lining and exploiting
MH's concepts even more thoroughly.

.U2 "Background to this Thesis
.P
I have discovered nmh in September 2009. At that time I used to use the
mail client \fImutt\fP, like many advanced Unix users do.
As I read about nmh, its concepts had convinced me at once.
Learning its different model of email handling had been relatively easy,
because my starting situation was being convinced of the concepts.
The transition from mutt to nmh was similar to
managing files in the Unix shell when being used to graphical file
managers, or like editing with vi when being used to modeless editors.
Such a change is not trivial, but in being convinced by the
concepts and by having done similar transitions for file management
and editing already, it was not too difficult neither.
In contrast, setting up nmh to a convenient state became a tendious task
that took several months.
.P
Once having nmh arranged to a convenient state, I enjoyed using it
because of its conceptional elegance and its scripting capabilities.
On the other hand, however, it still was
inconvenient for handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings,
and similar features of modern emailing.
My setup demanded more and more additional configuration and helper scripts
to get nmh behave the way I wanted, although my
expectations were rather common for modern emailing.
In being a computer scientist and programmer,
I wanted to improve the situation.
.P
In Spring 2010, I asked on the \fInmh-workers\fP mailing list for the
possibility to offer a Google Summer of Code project.
Participating in the development this way appeared attractive to me,
as it would have been possible to have the project
accepted at university. Although generally the nmh community
had been positive on the
suggestion, the administrative work had been to much, eventually.
But my proposal had activated the nmh community.
In the following weeks, goals for nmh's future were discussed.
In these discussions, I became involved in the
question whether nmh should be an MTA. (Thread subject:
``should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?''.)
In this central point, my opinion differed from the opinion of most others.
I argued for the MTA facility of nmh to be removed.
Besides the discussions, hardly any real work was done.
Being unable to work on nmh in a way that would be
accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to choose another project.
.P
Half a year later, starting in August 2010,
I took one semester off to travel through Latin America.
Within this time, I had to do practical computer work for three months.
This brought me back to nmh.
Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for
me to work on nmh. Juan Granda, living in Santiago del
Estero in Argentina, provided a computer with Internet connection for
my work. Thanks to them, I was able to work on nmh during my three-month
stay in Argentina.
Within this time, I became familiar with nmh's code base and
community. I learned how things work. Quickly it became obvious that
I wouldn't succeed with my main goal: improving the character
encoding handling within the project. One of its ramifications is the
missing transfer decoding of quoted text in replies.
As this is one of the most intricate parts of the system, the goal
was simply set too high. Hence, I dropped the original plan.
Instead, I improved the code base as I read through it. I found minor bugs
for which I proposed fixes to the community. In the same go, I
improved the documentation in minor ways. When I started with
larger code changes, I had to discover that the community was reluctant
to change. Its wish for compatibility was much stronger than its
wish for convenient out-of-the-box setups \(en in contrast to my opinion.
This lead to long discussions, again.
I came to understand their point of view, but it is different to mine.
At the end of my three-month project, I had become familiar with
nmh's code base and community. I had improved the project in minor ways,
and I still was convinced that I wanted to go on to do so.
.P
Another half a year later, the end of my studies came within reach.
I needed a topic for my master's thesis.
There was no question: I wanted to work on nmh.
But well, not exactly on nmh,
because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals
than I have. This would result in much discussion and thus little progress.
After careful thought, I decided to start an experimental version of nmh.
I wanted to implement my own ideas of how an MH-like system should look like.
I wanted to see where that would lead to.
I wanted to create a usable alternative version to be compared with
the present state of nmh.
My work should be proved successful or failed.
The nmh project would not be hurt by my work, but
it would profit from my experiences.

.U2 "Focus of this Document
.P
This document describes my work on the experimental nmh version, named
\fImmh\fP. It explains the changes to nmh, with focus on their reasons.
It discusses technical, historical, social and philosophical considerations.
On the technical side, this document
explains how an existing project was stream-lined by removing rough edges
and exploiting the central concepts better.
On the historical
side, changes through time in the use cases and the email features,
as well as the reactions to them, are discussed.
Socially, this document describes the effects
and experiences of a newcomer with revolutionary aims entering an old
and matured software projects.
Finally, philosophical thoughts on style, mainly based to the Unix philosophy,
are present throughout the discussions.
.P
This document is written for the community around MH-like mail systems,
including developers and users.
First of all, the document shall explain the design goals and
implementation decisions for mmh. But as well, it shall clarify my
personal perception of the
concepts of MH and Unix, and explain my therefrom resulting point of view.
Despite the focus on MH-like systems, this document may be worthwhile
to anyone interested in the Unix philosophy and anyone in contact to
old software projects, be it code or community-related.
.P
The reader is expected to have good knowledge of Unix, C and emailing.
Good Unix shell
knowledge, including shell scripting, is required. MH relies fundamentally
on the shell. Without the power of the shell, MH becomes a motorbike
without winding roads: boring.
Introductions to Unix and its shell can be found in ``The UNIX Programming
Environment'' by Kernighan and Pike or ``The UNIX System'' by Bourne.
The reader is
expected to be familiar with the C programming language, although the
document should be understandable without knowledge of C, too.
``The C Programming Language'' by Kernighan and Ritchie is the
definitive guide to C.
Some book about system-level C programming is worthwile additional
literature. Rochkind and Curry have written such books.
As large parts of the code are old, old books are likely more helpful
to understanding.
The format of email messages as well as the structure of email transfer
systems should be familiar to the reader, at least on a basic level.
It's advisable to have at least cross-read the RFCs 821 and 822.
Further more, basic understanding of MIME is good to have.
The Wikipedia provides good introduction-level information to email.
Frequent references to the Unix philosophy will be made.
Gancarz had tried to sum the philosophy up in his book ``The UNIX Philosophy''.
Even better but less concrete are ``The UNIX Programming Environment'' and
``The Practice of Programming'' by Kernighan and Pike.
The term paper ``Why the Unix Philosophy still matters'' by myself
provides an overview on the topic, including a case study of MH.
Although a brief introduction to MH is provided in Chapter 1, the reader
is encouraged to have a look at the \fIMH Book\fP by Jerry Peek.
It is the definitive guide to MH and nmh.
The current version is available freely on the Internet.
.P
This document is neither a user's tutorial to mmh nor an introduction
to any of the topics covered. It discusses Unix, email
and system design on an advanced level.
However, as knowledge of the fundamental concepts is the most valuable
information a user can aquire about some program or software system,
this document might be worth a read for non-developers as well.


.U2 "Organization
.P
Which font for what use.
Meaning of `foo(1)'.
RFCs.
MH vs. nmh vs. mmh.
.P
This thesis is devided into XXX chapters, ...
.P
.I Chapter 1
introduces ...
.P
.I Chapter 2
describes ...
.P
.I Chapter 3
covers ...


.U2 "Acknowledgments
.P
To be written at the very end.


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