[In a message on Thu, 25 Jul 2002 11:28:08 CDT,
the pithy ruminations of ""Chad C. Walstrom"" were:]
This statement doesn't quite match your examples below. The use of an
embedded language is to add access in that language to otherwise C
functions. The maintenance of state between separate application
invocations, as you mentioned, can be done through a "shell" program
of some kind. Using wish or tcl as a front-end shell to nmh commands
is not really embedding wish or tcl.
I agree completely. Embeding a language is a very different thing
that building an API.
To do IMAP with nmh, I see this type of agent program (daemon) to be
one possible answer. To do that we would have to create both the
agent, and we would have to make the existing nmh tools agent-aware.
I've been toying with this idea for some time, but haven't had any
time to code it. Ideas, suggestions, rebuttals? ;-)
Good idea, I agree, I've been sitting on the "good idea" side for too
long, and have been hoping to work on an IMAP agent (exactly as you
describe). I figured you could add the option "-agent
<socket|port|whatever>" to all the commands. Then, in .mh_profile,
you could add Agent: <connection>, and have the default be that all
commands try and talk to an IMAP server. If you want local files,
specify -noagent.
There is one other problem with getting nmh to work over IMAP. The
IMAP daemon's themselves must understand the MH format. I believe UW
has mh support as a "legacy", but I haven't spent enough time to get
my own use of it working. Any feedback on IMAP daemons that work with
the MH format.
I've used the CMU IMAP server, and it works, but is horribly slow and
has to re-download the entire headers every time you do ANYTHING
outside of the IMAP server.
I've been pondering this (read, sitting on the "good idea" side) for a
long time. Having the IMAP server understand MH format is not really a
requirement. You could make it so nmh had *no* local files (except
temporary ones), making it more like your "standard" imap client. Or
you could make it so that nmh merely downloads files from the imap
server, and nothing else, thus removing the fetchmail+sendmail
requirement.
The problem is, I want *some* folders to be on my imap server. I want
some local. And I want to download some mail from some imap servers,
some pop servers (actually, SSL pop/imap servers), and some local
spool files. I considered the hack "+folder(_at_)imap" or something icky,
but haven't really had a good thought on this.
If I'm going to bust my behind doing this, I want to do it "right".
Have you (Chad) any sort of specification on what you've been thinking
about?
For everyone else, consider this: As a 18 year "greybeard" Unix geek,
who has a Ultra 1 sitting upstairs because, well, why not, that I
connect to with VNC from my Mac laptop for most things, including
email, I'm pretty hard-core about nmh/exmh, and would never consider
doing something that would effect current usage (if at all possible).
Of course, if I WERE to embed an interpreter into nmh, it would be
perl. . . ;-)
Sean