Re: RFC mailbox interface

["M . Thielker" <balsa t-data com>]

On 2001.11.23 01:02 Carlos Morgado wrote:
> if a message is in 2 diferent folders with backing stores (ie. *real*
> mailboxes) it's 2 diferent messages. a folder with a backing store is a
> real mailbox for the user.

Wrong. It's a real mailbox for the user, and each of these contains an 
identical copy of the message. It's still only one message to me, stored in 
2 different places. Which I access depends on performance....
Opening the message from a remote folder, I would go ahead and load the 
local copy instead...

> this whole virtual and vfolders and cache and backing store thing got well
> out of hand. a folder with backing store is a mailbox. it uses space on 
> disk.
> it lives somewhere. it's backed up. the user cares about it. a 
> vfolder/view
> doesn't ocupy space on disk. if the message is copied to a diferent 
> mailbox
> it's a totally diferent message.

I don't see it that way. It's the same message as long as it's fingerprint 
is the same.
It's just _one_ message, stored in 2 locations.

> this is simple enough and can be used for mostly anything.
> 

It would be simple, too, but doesn't allow for the performance increase 
offered by the concept of treating all copies of a message as the same one 
message rather than having each lead it's own life.

>> Also note that the load_message wrapper (the main load_message function 
>> of the lib) can use the information found in the _Foldertype structure 
>> to assess the proximity of a server and prefer the fastest one to load 
>> the message from, e.g. local maildir/mh first, local mbox second, IMAP 
>> on the same subnet third. other IMAP fourth.....
>> 
> except if you're on UFS. or NFS. or samba. or some weird condition that
> changes everything.
> 

Well, it's possible to find out. As a matter of fact, if I were to write 
this, I would gather perf stats while opening the mailbox and reading the 
headers, then assign "speed indices" to each...

Melanie