🚀 go-pugleaf

In article gregg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (gregg.g.wonderly) writes:
> From article by wisner@mica.Berkeley.EDU (Bill Wisner):
> > MH can be instructed to keep track of messages that have not been seen by
> > putting them into an "unseen" sequence. It never touches the actual messages
> > to do this.
> > Note that MH does none of these things unless explicitly told to.
> 
> And most of us use the appropriate MHL formats and filters to have them
> stripped later.  Note that MHs repl(1) command (for replying to a message)
> will allow you to reply multiple times.  The Replied headers are stripped
> from the resulting message by the time you see it in the editor to add
> your reply.

No one said MH was stupid.  There -are- other stupid UA's out there that
don't do the right thing (what you described is the right thing).  But,
that has nothing to do at all with how a mail folder is stored.  It is
incorrect to make the following statement:

> people who continue to implement MUAs that use a single file for
> storing all messages seem to continue to replicate all the things that
> we hate about those programs.

The reason this is incorrect is because your assumption is that it is
the single-file-folder "feature" that makes the program "bad."
A well written/designed UA should [try to] make it as transparent as
possible about the method for how mail is stored.  You are making a
grave mistake by attributing the storage method utilized by a UA to the
bugs or implementation (design) features of that UA.  If you think that
MH's "features" are a result of the fact that it's folder storage method
is attributed to the fact that it stored messages on a file-per-message
format, you are mistaken.

Believe it or not, I don't advocate using the folder-in-a-file method
any more than MH's method; there are good reasons for doing it both ways.
I hesitate to start yet another religious war about whether or not the
Mail-method or the MH-method is better, but I almost feel compelled to
do so anyway because of the misconceptions about UA's as described in
the previous text above.  If the time has come yet again to resurrect
the war on MH vs. Mail folder formats, let's have it.  I'm prepared.

I'm always looking for good suggestions for improving mush (oh, if I
only had the time), and in fact Bart and I have a long list of things
to do for the future if the future ever arrives.  We're all working
together on this; I don't feel as if I'm competing with MH.

> gregg.g.wonderly@att.com   (AT&T bell laboratories)
dan <island!argv@cad.berkeley.edu>