Re: Rmail-mbox branch

[Paul Michael Reilly]

Chong Yidong wrote:
> Is anyone willing to help finish the work on the rmail-mbox branch?

I've bitten the bullet and started to work on it again.  As I said in
private email to Chong, working on this project in a CVS branch has all
the appeal of trying to convince most of the readers of this list that
vi was the right way after all.  Sure enough, I check out the branch,
do a ./configure run "make bootstrap" and BAM:

...
./temacs --batch --load loadup bootstrap
Loading loadup.el (source)...
Using load-path (/export/projects/gnu/mbox/lisp 
/export/projects/gnu/mbox/lisp/emacs-lisp 
/export/projects/gnu/mbox/lisp/language 
/export/projects/gnu/mbox/lisp/international 
/export/projects/gnu/mbox/lisp/textmodes)
Loading emacs-lisp/byte-run (source)...
Wrong type argument: listp, #<subr defmacro>
make[2]: *** [bootstrap-emacs] Error 255
make[2]: Leaving directory `/export/projects/gnu/mbox/src'
make[1]: *** [bootstrap-build] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/export/projects/gnu/mbox'
make: *** [bootstrap] Error 2


I'll supply more of the audit trail if anyone has way too much time on
their hands and wants to help figure out why the branch won't build on
my F9 Gnu/Linux system.  My wife is convinced I have way too much time
on MY hands to even consider working on Rmail/mbox again.

In any case, to head off more branch and merge grief, right now I'm
considering taking an approach of doing a minimalist clone of the mbox
code to my CVS trunk based workspace and call it Pmail for lack of a
better name.  The goal is to allow me to work on both Rmail/babyl and
Rmail/mbox simultaneously.  It might seem like more work but I have a
strong hunch that being able to work on both versions side by side
will help increase the chance that this project will actually get
done.

Now if someone else should actually finish this mbox work in the
branch and merge it back then more power to you and you have my
eternal thanks.

And I invite helpful comments, suggestions, and/or encouragement,
especially form both of the other Users who actually still want to use
the Rmail/mbox library. :-)

-pmr