[Nmh-workers] Is Pick Antiquated?

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

I've a fan of the Unix philosophy, many small programs doing one thing
each and doing it well, with the whole being greater than the sum of the
parts, but I wonder if these days pick(1) wouldn't be a separate
program.

What if scan, refile, etc., all accepted the same expression grammar for
selecting messages in a similar way to pick and not just their limited
message sequence (set) notation, e.g. `lp:-5'.  I know it's not much of
a leap from

    refile +cor `pick -list -sub inet -o -from rss last:100`

to

    refile +cor -sub inet -o -from rss last:100

but it avoids the `pick -list echoing 0' issue, the limited number of
sequences, the need for xargs, and perhaps pick's grammar isn't the
right one anyway?

    refile +cor sub:inet or from:rss -100

I'm not sure if I was starting now I'd have pick(1).  If mark(1) took an
expression then it alters the sequence/set.  scan with a format does
pick's -list of the message numbers.

Cheers, Ralph.