Re: [Nmh-workers] A MH-inspired Maildir handler: coma

[norm]

Robert Elz <address@hidden> writes:
>Date:        Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:34:21 +0100
>From:        Christian Neukirchen <address@hidden>
>Message-ID:  <address@hidden>

Somebody should write a paper or something, containing the kinds of thing
below, maybe with a title like "MH Three and a Half Decades On", a sort of
successor to

     "The Design of the MH Mail System", The RAND Corporation, N-3017-IRIS,
     December 1989 (with Robert Anderson, Tora Bikson and Phyllis Kanter)

though probably not a Rand Corporation Publication.


>| - Given above command lists, which important commands/functionality do
>|   you think are missing that MH provides?
>
>There's something that a lot of non-mh (or perhaps even casual mh) users
>don't understand about MH and its functionality.
>
>That is: the MH command set is every unix command - not just the ones in
>the MX tarball (after it gets compiled).
>
>Of course, like any other use, many of the commands are rarely (if ever)
>applicable - I find it difficult to imagine a use case for cc or nroff
>applied to an e-mail message - but, and here is the important point, that
>I find it difficult to imagine (or that you, or anyone else does) does not
>mean that someone else can't find a nice use case for exactly that
>(and note here I am expressly not talking about show | nroff or anything
>like that, but more akin to nroff `mhpath cur`)
>
>In particular, given recent discussions, vi is one of my common tools
>(others prefer different editors, which editor isn't important, substitute
>emacs if you're a heretic, or perhaps something else), and one of my sh funcs
>is "vim" which simply applies vi to a set of MH compatible args, so I can
>vim last +inbox
>or anything else like that).   And given the editor (whichever editor) and
>a message, I change *anything* in it that I feel needs changing (headers,
>body, anywhere).
>
>Aside from that, all the standard file operation commands get used a lot
>(mv cp ln mkdir ...) and the searching tools (grep, ... - as well as pick,
>depending upon what I need) and various analysis tools (file, size, wc, ...).
>
>Just making show scan pick (et al) work is not supplying an MH environment.
>
>kre
>
>ps: here is vim ...
>
>vim()
>{
>local A B M
>
>B=
>M=
>for A
>do
>case "$A" in
>-*)     B="${B} '${A}'" ;;
>+*)     B="${B} '${A}'" ;;
>*)      M="${M} '${A}'" ;;
>esac
>done
>
>test -z "${M}" && M=cur
>eval set -$- X $B $M
>shift
>
>vi `mhpath "$@"`
>}
>
>
>I guess I should really make it also be able to be given vi args, +/ etc,
>but I haven't had that need yet.  I use this A LOT - sometimes just so I
>can read raw mail (without it being decoded at all, and giving me 100%
>confidence that is what is happening) and sometimes to make changes.
>
>
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    Norman Shapiro
    798 Barron Avenue
    Palo Alto CA 94306-3109
    (650) 565-8215
    address@hidden