1.1 --- a/ch03.roff	Mon May 07 15:50:09 2012 +0200
     1.2 +++ b/ch03.roff	Mon May 07 17:27:57 2012 +0200
     1.3 @@ -214,6 +214,96 @@
     1.4  common today.
     1.5  
     1.6  
     1.7 +.H1 "Removal of Tools
     1.8 +.P
     1.9 +MH had been considered an all-in-one system for mail handling.
    1.10 +The community around nmh has a similar understanding.
    1.11 +In fundamental difference, I believe that mmh should be a MUA but
    1.12 +nothing more. I believe that all-in-one mail systems are not the way
    1.13 +to go. There are excellent specialized MTAs, like Postfix;
    1.14 +there are specialized MDAs, like Procmail; there are specialized
    1.15 +MRAs, like Fetchmail. I believe it's best to use them instead of
    1.16 +providing the same function ourself. Doing something well requires to
    1.17 +focus on this particular aspect or a small set of aspects. The more
    1.18 +it is possible to focus, the better the result in this particular
    1.19 +area will be. The limiting resource in Free Software community development
    1.20 +usually is human power. If the low development power is even parted
    1.21 +into multiple development areas, it will hardly be possible to 
    1.22 +compete with the specialists in the various fields. This is even
    1.23 +increased, given the small community \(en developers and users \(en
    1.24 +that MH-based mail systems have. In consequence, I believe that the
    1.25 +available resources should be concentrated at the point where MH is
    1.26 +most unique. This is clearly the MUA part.
    1.27 +.P
    1.28 +Several of nmh's tools were removed from mmh because they didn't
    1.29 +match the main focus of adding to the MUA's task.
    1.30 +.P
    1.31 +.Pn conflict
    1.32 +was removed because it is a mail system maintenance tool.
    1.33 +Besides, it also checks the
    1.34 +.Fn /etc/passwd
    1.35 +and
    1.36 +.Fn /etc/group
    1.37 +files.
    1.38 +The tool might be useful, but it should not be shipped with mmh.
    1.39 +.P
    1.40 +.Pn rcvtty
    1.41 +was removed because its usecase of writing to the user's terminal
    1.42 +on receival of mail is hardly wanted today. If users like to be
    1.43 +informed of new mail, then using the shell's
    1.44 +.Ev MAILPATH
    1.45 +variable or different (graphical) notifications are likely more
    1.46 +appealing. Writing directly to other terminals is hardly ever wanted
    1.47 +today. If though one wants to have it this way, the standard tool
    1.48 +.Pn write
    1.49 +can be used in a way similar to:
    1.50 +.DS
    1.51 +scan -file - | write `id -un`
    1.52 +.DE
    1.53 +.P
    1.54 +When the new attachment system was introduced,
    1.55 +.Pn viamail
    1.56 +was removed because then
    1.57 +.Pn forw
    1.58 +could cover the task itself.
    1.59 +The wrapper program
    1.60 +.Pn sendfiles
    1.61 +was rewritten as a shell script to use
    1.62 +.Pn forw .
    1.63 +.P
    1.64 +.Pn msgchk
    1.65 +was removed as it became hardly useful when POP support was removed.
    1.66 +It is questionable if
    1.67 +.Pn msgchk
    1.68 +provides more information than:
    1.69 +.DS
    1.70 +ls -l /var/mail/meillo
    1.71 +.DE
    1.72 +It does separate between old and new mail, but that's not very
    1.73 +useful and can be found out with
    1.74 +.Pn stat (1)
    1.75 +too. A very small shell script could care for the form of output.
    1.76 +As mmh's inc only incorporates mail from the user's local maildrop
    1.77 +and thus no long data transfers are involved,
    1.78 +there's no need to check for new mail before incorporating it.
    1.79 +.P
    1.80 +.Pn msh
    1.81 +was removed because the tool was in conflict with the original
    1.82 +philosophy of MH. It provided an interactive shell to access the
    1.83 +features of MH. One major feature of MH is being a toolchest.
    1.84 +.Pn msh
    1.85 +wouldn't be just another shell, taylored to the needs of mail
    1.86 +handling, but one large program to have the MH tools built in.
    1.87 +It's main use was for accessing Bulletin Boards, which have seized to
    1.88 +be popular. Removing
    1.89 +.Pn msh ,
    1.90 +together with the truly obsolete programs
    1.91 +.Pn vmh
    1.92 +and
    1.93 +.Pn wmh ,
    1.94 +saved more than 7\|000 lines of C code \(en a major achievement.
    1.95 +
    1.96 +
    1.97  .H1 "Draft and Trash Folders
    1.98  .U2 "Draft Folder
    1.99  .P