meillo@0: .H0 "Preface" no
meillo@0: 
meillo@23: .P
meillo@47: MH is a set of mail handling tools with a common concept, similar to
meillo@47: the Unix toolchest, which is a set of file handling tools with a common
meillo@23: concept. nmh is the currently most popular implementation of an
meillo@23: MH-like mail handling system.
meillo@47: This thesis describes an experimental version of nmh, named \fImmh\fP.
meillo@23: 
meillo@30: .U2 "Background to this Thesis
meillo@8: .P
meillo@28: I have discovered nmh in September 2009. At that time I used to use the
meillo@31: mail client \fImutt\fP, like many advanced Unix users do.
meillo@31: As I read about nmh, its concepts had convinced me at once.
meillo@31: Learning its different model of email handling had been relatively easy,
meillo@31: because my starting situation was being convinced of the concepts.
meillo@31: The transition from mutt to nmh was similar to
meillo@28: managing files in the Unix shell when being used to graphical file
meillo@31: managers, or like editing with vi when being used to modeless editors.
meillo@31: Such a change is not trivial, but in being convinced by the
meillo@31: concepts and by having done similar transitions for file management
meillo@31: and editing already, it was not too difficult neither.
meillo@28: In contrast, setting up nmh to a convenient state became a tendious task
meillo@23: that took several months.
meillo@23: .P
meillo@28: Once having nmh arranged to a convenient state, I enjoyed using it
meillo@28: because of its conceptional elegance and its scripting capabilities.
meillo@23: On the other hand, however, it still was
meillo@31: inconvenient for handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings,
meillo@23: and similar features of modern emailing.
meillo@31: My setup demanded more and more additional configuration and helper scripts
meillo@31: to get nmh behave the way I wanted, although my
meillo@31: expectations were rather common for modern emailing.
meillo@31: In being a computer scientist and programmer,
meillo@31: I wanted to improve the situation.
meillo@8: .P
meillo@31: In Spring 2010, I asked on the \fInmh-workers\fP mailing list for the
meillo@31: possibility to offer a Google Summer of Code project.
meillo@23: Participating in the development this way appeared attractive to me,
meillo@31: as it would have been possible to have the project
meillo@31: accepted at university. Although generally the nmh community
meillo@31: had been positive on the
meillo@31: suggestion, the administrative work had been to much, eventually.
meillo@31: But my proposal had activated the nmh community.
meillo@31: In the following weeks, goals for nmh's future were discussed.
meillo@31: In these discussions, I became involved in the
meillo@34: question whether nmh should be an MTA.
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: nmh-workers thread mta mua
meillo@34: .]
meillo@31: In this central point, my opinion differed from the opinion of most others.
meillo@31: I argued for the MTA facility of nmh to be removed.
meillo@31: Besides the discussions, hardly any real work was done.
meillo@31: Being unable to work on nmh in a way that would be
meillo@31: accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to choose another project.
meillo@8: .P
meillo@23: Half a year later, starting in August 2010,
meillo@23: I took one semester off to travel through Latin America.
meillo@31: Within this time, I had to do practical computer work for three months.
meillo@23: This brought me back to nmh.
meillo@23: Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for
meillo@23: me to work on nmh. Juan Granda, living in Santiago del
meillo@31: Estero in Argentina, provided a computer with Internet connection for
meillo@31: my work. Thanks to them, I was able to work on nmh during my three-month
meillo@31: stay in Argentina.
meillo@31: Within this time, I became familiar with nmh's code base and
meillo@31: community. I learned how things work. Quickly it became obvious that
meillo@31: I wouldn't succeed with my main goal: improving the character
meillo@31: encoding handling within the project. One of its ramifications is the
meillo@31: missing transfer decoding of quoted text in replies.
meillo@23: As this is one of the most intricate parts of the system, the goal
meillo@31: was simply set too high. Hence, I dropped the original plan.
meillo@31: Instead, I improved the code base as I read through it. I found minor bugs
meillo@31: for which I proposed fixes to the community. In the same go, I
meillo@31: improved the documentation in minor ways. When I started with
meillo@31: larger code changes, I had to discover that the community was reluctant
meillo@31: to change. Its wish for compatibility was much stronger than its
meillo@31: wish for convenient out-of-the-box setups \(en in contrast to my opinion.
meillo@23: This lead to long discussions, again.
meillo@31: I came to understand their point of view, but it is different to mine.
meillo@23: At the end of my three-month project, I had become familiar with
meillo@31: nmh's code base and community. I had improved the project in minor ways,
meillo@31: and I still was convinced that I wanted to go on to do so.
meillo@23: .P
meillo@23: Another half a year later, the end of my studies came within reach.
meillo@23: I needed a topic for my master's thesis.
meillo@23: There was no question: I wanted to work on nmh.
meillo@23: But well, not exactly on nmh,
meillo@8: because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals
meillo@31: than I have. This would result in much discussion and thus little progress.
meillo@23: After careful thought, I decided to start an experimental version of nmh.
meillo@31: I wanted to implement my own ideas of how an MH-like system should look like.
meillo@31: I wanted to see where that would lead to.
meillo@31: I wanted to create a usable alternative version to be compared with
meillo@31: the present state of nmh.
meillo@31: My work should be proved successful or failed.
meillo@31: The nmh project would not be hurt by my work, but
meillo@31: it would profit from my experiences.
meillo@28: 
meillo@30: .U2 "Focus of this Document
meillo@8: .P
meillo@47: This document describes my work on mmh.
meillo@47: It explains the changes to nmh, with focus on their reasons.
meillo@31: It discusses technical, historical, social and philosophical considerations.
meillo@31: On the technical side, this document
meillo@31: explains how an existing project was stream-lined by removing rough edges
meillo@31: and exploiting the central concepts better.
meillo@31: On the historical
meillo@31: side, changes through time in the use cases and the email features,
meillo@31: as well as the reactions to them, are discussed.
meillo@31: Socially, this document describes the effects
meillo@28: and experiences of a newcomer with revolutionary aims entering an old
meillo@31: and matured software projects.
meillo@31: Finally, philosophical thoughts on style, mainly based to the Unix philosophy,
meillo@31: are present throughout the discussions.
meillo@23: .P
meillo@31: This document is written for the community around MH-like mail systems,
meillo@31: including developers and users.
meillo@31: First of all, the document shall explain the design goals and
meillo@31: implementation decisions for mmh. But as well, it shall clarify my
meillo@30: personal perception of the
meillo@31: concepts of MH and Unix, and explain my therefrom resulting point of view.
meillo@31: Despite the focus on MH-like systems, this document may be worthwhile
meillo@31: to anyone interested in the Unix philosophy and anyone in contact to
meillo@31: old software projects, be it code or community-related.
meillo@28: .P
meillo@30: The reader is expected to have good knowledge of Unix, C and emailing.
meillo@30: Good Unix shell
meillo@28: knowledge, including shell scripting, is required. MH relies fundamentally
meillo@28: on the shell. Without the power of the shell, MH becomes a motorbike
meillo@30: without winding roads: boring.
meillo@31: Introductions to Unix and its shell can be found in ``The UNIX Programming
meillo@37: Environment'' by Kernighan and Pike
meillo@37: .[
meillo@37: kernighan pike unix prog env
meillo@37: .]
meillo@37: or ``The UNIX System'' by Bourne.
meillo@37: .[
meillo@37: bourne unix system
meillo@37: .]
meillo@28: The reader is
meillo@28: expected to be familiar with the C programming language, although the
meillo@30: document should be understandable without knowledge of C, too.
meillo@37: ``The C Programming Language'' by Kernighan and Ritchie
meillo@37: .[
meillo@37: kernighan ritchie c prog lang
meillo@37: .]
meillo@37: is the definitive guide to C.
meillo@28: Some book about system-level C programming is worthwile additional
meillo@28: literature. Rochkind and Curry have written such books.
meillo@37: .[
meillo@37: rochkind advanced unix prog
meillo@37: .]
meillo@37: .[
meillo@37: curry system prog
meillo@37: .]
meillo@31: As large parts of the code are old, old books are likely more helpful
meillo@31: to understanding.
meillo@28: The format of email messages as well as the structure of email transfer
meillo@28: systems should be familiar to the reader, at least on a basic level.
meillo@31: It's advisable to have at least cross-read the RFCs 821 and 822.
meillo@31: Further more, basic understanding of MIME is good to have.
meillo@31: The Wikipedia provides good introduction-level information to email.
meillo@28: Frequent references to the Unix philosophy will be made.
meillo@34: Gancarz had tried to sum the philosophy up in his book
meillo@34: ``The UNIX Philosophy''.
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: gancarz unix phil
meillo@34: .]
meillo@47: Even better, though less concrete, are ``The UNIX Programming Environment''
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: kernighan pike unix prog env
meillo@34: .]
meillo@34: and ``The Practice of Programming''
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: kernighan pike practice of prog
meillo@34: .]
meillo@34: by Kernighan and Pike.
meillo@34: The term paper ``Why the Unix Philosophy still matters''
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: why unix phil still matters schnalke
meillo@34: .]
meillo@34: by myself
meillo@28: provides an overview on the topic, including a case study of MH.
meillo@30: Although a brief introduction to MH is provided in Chapter 1, the reader
meillo@30: is encouraged to have a look at the \fIMH Book\fP by Jerry Peek.
meillo@34: .[
meillo@34: peek mh
meillo@34: .]
meillo@30: It is the definitive guide to MH and nmh.
meillo@31: The current version is available freely on the Internet.
meillo@30: .P
meillo@30: This document is neither a user's tutorial to mmh nor an introduction
meillo@31: to any of the topics covered. It discusses Unix, email
meillo@30: and system design on an advanced level.
meillo@30: However, as knowledge of the fundamental concepts is the most valuable
meillo@31: information a user can aquire about some program or software system,
meillo@31: this document might be worth a read for non-developers as well.
meillo@8: 
meillo@8: 
meillo@28: .U2 "Organization
meillo@0: .P
meillo@28: Which font for what use.
meillo@28: Meaning of `foo(1)'.
meillo@28: RFCs.
meillo@28: .P
meillo@28: This thesis is devided into XXX chapters, ...
meillo@24: .P
meillo@24: .I Chapter 1
meillo@24: introduces ...
meillo@24: .P
meillo@24: .I Chapter 2
meillo@24: describes ...
meillo@24: .P
meillo@24: .I Chapter 3
meillo@24: covers ...
meillo@24: 
meillo@23: 
meillo@28: .U2 "Acknowledgments
meillo@23: .P
meillo@24: To be written at the very end.