Re: [Nmh-workers] urls from mhpath, and message store abstraction layers.

[norm]

Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:
>>In the IMAP case, you don't want to download the entire message just to
>>satisfy an mhpath request. The value in IMAP is its ability to treat
>>MIME sections as separate objects. By sucking down entire messages, all
>>you've done is downgrade IMAP to POP.
>
>I understand where you're coming from, but I have to ask ... when
>people use mhpath to get the path of an MH message, what, exactly,
>are they trying to accomplish?  Usually it's something along the
>lines of "use some Unix text processing tool on this message".  For
>that you need to download the whole thing.

Not just download, but upload too, that is, modify messages.

>- My gut tells me that even thought there is a danger of the "design by
>committee" problem, we should discuss this on nmh-workers.  I think there
>is enough good ideas here that it would be useful to solicit input
>from people.  I could be persuaded otherwise.

One of the design goals of mh, was transparency. I grant that we did not
completely achieve that goal. I also grant that the Email world of 1977 was
much, much, simpler than the world you are confronted with. Nonetheless, it
would be good to keep that goal in mind.

    Norman Shapiro
    798 Barron Avenue
    Palo Alto CA 94306-3109
    (650) 565-8215
    address@hidden