🚀 go-pugleaf

In article wisner@mica.Berkeley.EDU (Bill Wisner) writes:
> Clarification:
> In article <113567@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller) writes:
> >Greg points out that MH saves this info as well, but not in a header
> >which is visible to the user -- MH apparently filters this information
> >out when the message is displayed.
> 
> The "normal" way for MH to display a message is just to print the whole
> thing out, including all headers. This includes the MH-inserted Replied:
> or Forwarded: headers.

Remember the reason this whole issue came up.  Someone complained/asked
about the Status: header and Karl replied by saying that it's "bogus"
for the UA to add these headers to messages.  Yet in reality, that is
exactly what MH is doing, so he defeats his own argument.  Nevertheless,
I never agreed that this was a "bad thing."  Au contraire, mon frere.
Not only do I see it as the only option (no other way to do it), I also
think it's a good thing to do.  Retaining information about replied info
and saved info, etc, is important and retaining that information anywhere
else besides the message headers is poor design (which is why everyone
implements it that way).

> I, advanced MH user that I am, have set up a
> filter that removes these.
The filter that you chose to remove the display of those headers when
your message is displayed is also available to the Mail/Mush paradigm
using the ignore command.

>  MH, big stud mailer, records the date and time of
> the reply and to whom the reply was sent. You get two lines of information
> for every reply you send.

I will concede to the fact that MH's method of storing replied-to
information is better than Mush's.  However, Mush will continue to
use the Status: header because this header is useful for other reasons.
For example, you can sort your mail by the status of a message (e.g.
place all replied to messages next to one another, group all new/unread
messages, saved messages, etc...).  It takes vitually no user time at
all to do this because Mush doesn't have to scan message headers in order
to determine the status of the message -- when the folder is loaded,
the status is stored in internal data structures and retained as long
as the folder is open.

> >But what really took the cake for me was the fact that if your mail is
> >configured for MH, there's no other UA you can use-- you are stuck with MH.
> 
> Piffle. MH's packf command will take a bunch of messages and stick them
> together into an MMDF mail file. You can use any other UA that understands
> MMDF's file format. And speaking of religious wars, MMDF's format is
> superior to the standard UNIX mail format.

I don't want to start a religioous war on this (and if anyone cares to
continue this conversation, start a new message; don't reply to this one
and discuss this issue).  But the simple fact that ^A is not a printable
character means that mail MTAs are going to have a major problem in
mailing that message to someone.  You can't mail MMDF folders without a
probable headache.  Secondly, why a message separator at the start *and*
one at the end of a message.  Basically, you have two sets of ^A's that
are adjacent to one another.  What can you stick between them?  Hmmm...
maybe that's a good place to put "status" information about a message...
hey, maybe they have something there :-).

At any rate, the only problem I have with that scheme is that the text
is non-printable.  I don't advocate using "From " either.  I think the
best thing to do would be to come up with something new, but whatever it
is won't be compatible with most of the current folder formats that are
out there.  Compatibility, unfortunately, is a strong argument for leaving
things be.

> Well, I was a mush user until I came across MH..
:-D
dan <island!argv@sun.com>
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