0.2 - Open Issues.
I'm curious why "fileinto" is being considered for moving into a separate
document. Maybe I missed an earlier thread on this.
1. Introduction
The word 'sort' in 4th paragraph is maybe a bit ambiguous when talking
about sorting mailboxes. Maybe something like 'autofile' or something.
Not a big point, just a comment.
2.5.1 Headers
2.5.2 Addresses
There are notes that asks whether these sections is necessary or useful.
I think they are.
2.7 Evaluation
The second paragraph mentions the possibility that implementations may
impose restrictions on the number of actions per message.
I think this is a bad thing. While I understand that one of the design
goals is to reduce the possibility of using the mechanism for mail-bombing,
I want to point out that there is sufficient existing practice to allow
such actions as auto-filing in conjunction with auto-forwarding.
With a restriction like this, the sieve becomes significantly less useful
for many of the users that are most likely to use it the first place -
users adept at email.
6. Errors in Processing a Script
The stipulation that implementations SHOULD NOT try to recover from a
script with errors is a problem for me. Aborting within an 'if' clause
makes sense to me, but to totally stop filtering if any error is encountered
is the wrong thing to do. I would venture a guess that most users would
consider this a very bad characteristic of the mechanism.
On the readability front,
I would like to see an optimization made to the grammar. In the elements
of an if-clause condition that use a list as an argument, I would like to
see the ability to not necessarily have the parens for single-item lists.
It might also be nice for users to not have to use quotes around words that
don't need them.
Here's an abbreviated version of the example in 2.5 to illustrate:
if any-of (header ("from")
contains ("bart" "homer" "smithers" "burns" "lisa"),
header ("subject") contains ("URGENT")) then
fileinto "INBOX"
endif
Elimitating spurious parens:
if any-of (header "from"
contains ("bart" "homer" "smithers" "burns" "lisa"),
header "subject" contains "URGENT") then
fileinto "INBOX"
endif
Eliminating sprurious quotes:
if any-of (header from contains (bart, homer, smithers, burns, lisa),
header subject contains URGENT) then
fileinto INBOX
endif
The rule for whether or not quotes were needed would be based on avoidance
of conflicts in the grammer (eg: whitespace and commas).
I think this behaviour is more novice-friendly.
--
thx,
kjj