Re: [Nmh-workers] What OS/Architecture Do You Run nmh On?

[Ken Hornstein]

>It was probably Pike that said a cache is bugs waiting to happen.  :-)

I'm not disagreeing, but ...

>Maildir seems ill-suited to MH's needs as an `emails are files, use
>Unix' store.  But then that wasn't its aim.  Does the rest of the world
>just need IMAP access to the emails, e.g. for webmail?  Perhaps
>corrupting MH for Maildir is the wrong way around.  Perhaps altering
>MH's store to have fast scan as well as rmm, and have an IMAP server
>that understands that new format, and how it can change under its feet,
>is simpler.

Here is my $0.02 on that topic.

I'm fine with speeding up MH's store; that sound great!  But ... I do
not think adapting an existing or writing a new IMAP server for this
"better, faster, stronger" MH store is a good idea.

First, that was attempted already, with UW-IMAP.  That project is
now defunct, and Paul was one of the people who tried to keep the MH
interface going; everyone said that it worked, but it wasn't great.
>From what I'm hearing the the fundamental problem was an impedence
mismatch between what IMAP needed and what the MH mailstore provided.

Paul has been nibbling around the edges of saying this, but I would
summarize his OVERALL point is that MH/nmh is used by a tiny, TINY
fraction of email users, the way people use email has been changing,
we're not keeping up, and this path isn't sustainable.  I know how
old _I_ am, and I'm a youngster compared to some of the other MH users
out there :-)

I think that maybe a few die-hards out there might still be happy with
nmh as their primary email reader, but I think that the best growth
opportunity for nmh is to be one of several tools you would use to
access your mailbox.  One of nmh's big weakness now is that you have to
suck your email into its mailstore and once you put it in the MH mailstore
not too many clients can get access to it (I am aware of some other
MUAs which claim to support the MH mailstore, but every one I have looked
at involves some compromises).  And when I say "growth", I just don't
mean more users (although that would be nice), but being MORE USEFUL
would sure be great.

Now I am not suggesting that we replace the MH mailstore with Maildir;
that doesn't seem such a great idea to me.  But supporting Maildir and
IMAP sure seems like a no-brainer to me; that makes nmh MORE USEFUL to
people.  That gains us interoperability with other clients, and that
means people aren't stuck with just using nmh, they can use whatever
MUA they want in addition to nmh.

As for providing our own IMAP server ... ugh.  First, if our "IMAP
support" means you have to run your OWN IMAP server, I think that's
a massive failure on our part.  Secondly, who is writing that code,
exactly?  An IMAP server is not exactly a small amount of code.  I don't
see other IMAP servers accepting patches for new mailstores, because
like Paul said we are probably only of historical interest at this
point.

--Ken