RE: [Evolution] evolution folder layout (Off-topic)

[Paul Bleisch <pbleisch digitalanvil com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeffrey P. Lanza [mailto:jpl alumni unh edu]
> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 1:12 PM
>
> I've done a lot of coding work in SNMP and the labels there 
> *do* have to follow a convention.  Now I'm not suggesting that 
> we bring that into Evolution, but you should acknowledge that 
> formatting conventions can make things easier to read and to 
> work on.

I agree that if there is one standard convention/requirement for
the symbols it can make it easier to work with them.  I think
supporting multiple conventions (as multiple filesystem types
would require) eliminates the gains.  At that point, I think we
should try to make a simple mechanism that is filesystem independent.
(more on this later)


> But I think the question is, do you really need to have 
> these filenames?  

I don't *need* to have an folder names.  Every folder can be forced
to be a number (1,2,3,4,etc...), but I *want* my folder names to
be more useful and I don't want to have to think about what special
things I need to think about when I name them.  Moreover, I don't
want to name a folder and then move it later and have my mailer
tell me that my previously valid folder name is now illegal because
the filesystem I've moved it to does not support some character.

> Do you really need to insist upon these filenames if it means 
> that some extra filename mapping code has to be introduced?  
> Keep in mind that any such code is going to reduce the speed 
> of the program while it re-maps your filename and runs out to 
> memory and or the disk to check that it hasn't already used 
> that mapping.

I think you are exagerating the cost of the map.  If the number
of folders is small, then the lookup should be negligable (much
less than the cost of the query to populate the folder).  If
the number of folders is large (thousands), the lookup can be
made to be Nlog(N) or possibly less.

>   I've made the same argument for the resend command, so 
> perhaps we should add that mapping table just to make the 
> program more user friendly.  I don't know what the best solution 
> to this is,

I still think some indirection mechanism will be required to
handle internationalization.  Can I name a folder/file under
linux using Kanji characters?

> One last comment on the folder naming conventions...  Are 
> we even going to need them?  My understanding of how 
> Evolution will handle mail folders is that all messages are 
> going to be indexed as they come in and that folders will 
> actually just be the results of queries against the index.
> If this is the case, will we really need to create folders?

I thought about that when the first mail went out about this.
My assumption was (from all of the discussion) that we would
need to create directories.  However, I would be (even) happier
if Evolution never created a single directory on my machine.


Paul