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Re: nmh project and future of MH

1997-04-17 18:06:45
My question at this point, is what plans UCI has for MH.

I consider MH to be stable.  There are a lot of great added-value
packages (e.g., mh-e, exmh) which rely on the current syntax and
behavior of MH.  I think making user-interface changes without adding
*substantial* new functionality would be a bad thing.  However, there
are quite a few small fixes and changes that have been submitted which
need to be merged (MIME enhancements, etc.).  A programmer has been
working on this for about two weeks; we will put out a new MH release
when he's done (before Summer).

If there is time, more substantial development could occur.  Some
of the things I think are needed are:

    - removing the m_getfld stdio hacks
    - making the sources POSIX-compliant
    - making MH internal subroutines accessible as tcl
      procedures (which should benefit exmh)
    - re-working the folder handling routines to type-independent
      (that is, a folder could be a regular MH folder, a UUCP maildrop,
      an MMDF maildrop, a POP connection, an IMAP connection, a tar
      file, etc.)
    - adding configurable context locking

But, most of these changes are "hard" and not very exciting, since the
goal is to keep the user-interface the same, rather than adding glitzy
new (incompatible?) features.

If the UCI developers do not plan
on any more development of MH, I would prefer to called this
major release MH-7.0 instead.
If the UCI developers would prefer I not do this,
then that's cool.

Please don't.  Also, please be sure to update the documentation
in your distribution to reflect that you are supporting your release
of MH (not UCI) and how users can contact you directly.

/JLR


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