Re: [Nmh-workers] nmh in near, medium, and far-term

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> If you're going to do that, you might aswell name the files using an
> SHA hash.

Thoughts I've had over the years...  MH was handy because it integrated
with the Unix command line and filesystem;  I still awk, etc.,
~/mail/inbox/* on occasion when nmh's commands don't suffice.  That's
good;  I don't think nmh should grow every bell and whistle.

MIME breaks this.  If all textual parts were stored in UTF-8 on disk
things would improve once again.  Perhaps even a mail/inbox/42 for a
UTF-8 summary of the email, headers and the body laid out as text where
possible, and a mail/inbox/42/... with the headers and each part as a
separate file, including sub-directories where needed, e.g.
~/mail/inbox/42/foo.png exists.  Plan 9 had something along these lines.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/4/upasfs

The other thing would be a single name for the email with links
implementing folders/tags.  That backups think a lot has changed when a
folder is packed is a flaw.  Possibly in the backup software, I'll
admit.

I don't see these fitting easily into nmh but thought I'd throw them out
there whilst there's list activity.  :-)

Cheers, Ralph.