Re: Configuration

[Jules Bean <jmlb2 hermes cam ac uk>]

On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Walt Armour wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Jules Bean wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2 Mar 1999 glennm@mediaone.net wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > 
> > Message Filtering!
> > 
> > Does anyone apart from me think that balsa is the wrong place to do
> > message filtering?  Personally, I think message filtering is best done by
> > a special-purpose app, like procmail or exim, and is possibly done
> > 'upstream' at the IMAP server.  Even if you use POP, it seems to me that
> > fetchmail+procmail is a neater filtering solution that balsa - why should
> > we reinvent the wheel?
> > 
> 
> I decided to start working on balsa for several reasons.  One of them is
> long term and involves the "ease-of-use" facilities of Linux (or lack
> thereof currently).  I want to see Linux go mainstream desktop and I
> believe that to accomplish that we _have_ to win over Joe User to our
> desktop.

I admit to being a different wavelength here.  I want Linux to be the
best.  I'm not too bothered about whether Joe User uses it - it's his
loss, not mine.  However, I do understand your points.

> 
> I like balsa and believe that it can help in the long-term effort by being
> a kind of "all-in-one" mail tool.  I'm not talking about a complete
> kitchen sink setup but something along the lines of the popular Win32
> tools that people are used to today.  And please, don't start the windows
> flames.
> 
> Given the choice which would you prefer to setup: a mailclient which does
> what you need OR mailclient+fetchmail+procmail to get what you need.  I'm
> pretty sure I know what Joe User will say.

Fair point.  I say the opposite :-)  One of the traditional strengths of
Linux (indeed, anything on the un*x model) is the way that separate tools
can easily interoperate to combine to do things the original authors
hadn't thought of.  procmail is a very powerful filter tool - indeed, I
suspect it's more or less turing complete, and can do anything!  So why
reinvent the wheel (but please read on before replying...)

> 
> Personally, I don't want to resort to three programs to properly receive
> and filter my mail.  I want to be able to crank up one app, tell it where
> to get my mail, and tell it what to do with my mail.
> 
> Besides, even if we do include some kind of filtering in balsa there is no
> requirement that it be used.  You can still setup fetchmail+procmail and
> go that route if you want.

Of course.  And that's the killer argument.  If you want to work on a
superb filtering system, then I'm certainly not going to stand in your
way!  I may not use it, though..

Jules
 
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|  Julian Bean   | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk        |  TW9 2TF *UK*       |
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