> From: Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Wed, Sep 25, 2002 at 12:10:21AM -0500, The Fool wrote: > > > Which is my point, they don't have to separate conjoined messages they > > are already separate when they arrive. After twenty years one of the > > first open source projects still hasn't come up with a better method > > of storing messages that does not involve a stupid hack. > > I disagree with "stupid". It was a simple kludge, definitely not an > elegant design, but hardly stupid. UNIX was based on text, text pipes > and text files. It allowed a huge amount of flexibility since all > programs could easily interoperate with each other by inputing or > outputing a stream of text to a file. It allowed everything to be > modular. So, the MDA is separate from the mail reader. It made sense for > the MDA to append each incoming message to the end of a text file, that > is the UNIX way. That sort of behavior was largely responsible for the > huge success of UNIX. > > >There is a reason why you design thing properly from the start, and > >don't make code hacks. > > 20 years ago computers were much less powerful. You would probably > suggest that the MDA would count the characters in the email and add > a count to the header before it appended the email to the file. For > computers back then, that would have required non-trivial amounts > of computer memory and processor time. Especially if several big > emails came in almost simultaneously (remember UNIX was multi-user > and multi-tasking from the start). So, it wasn't "stupid" to make > a simple kludge, it was expedient. Could it have been done more > elegantly? Yes. Would it have been a better solution at the time? Maybe > not.
It's stupid because, it gives up the ability to have direct access to the stored messages, they have to be parsed sequentially every time they have to be accessed, which is a severe net loss in computer processing time, etc. > > Neither of those things was done, and they still haven't fixed the > > issue on which the stupid hack was based. The stupid hack became the > > standard. > > Again, the problem is compatibility. If the MDAs stopped mangling all > the From lines, then scores (hundreds, perhaps) of mail readers and mail > processing programs would break. And is the problem such a big deal? > You have been using email, I presume, for years, and this is the first > time you even NOTICED it. And it didn't really cause you any problems, > it was just a curiousity. I expect that what I send is maintained in integrity. Suppose there was an encryption / compression algorithm that for some reason, for a particular message came up with a from: that was aligned on the left of the message. The message would be completely indecipherable. > For fun, I tried to think up a way to fix it and preserve compatibility. > (The URL I quoted earlier hinted at it). It would be to quote every > instance of lines beginning with "From", ">From", ">>From", etc. with > an additional ">". Then, the current mail handlers would not be broken, > and the "aware" mail handlers would be rewritten to display emails by > transforming lines beginning with ">From" to "From" and ">>From" to > ">From" and so on. I think this would work reasonably well AND maintain > backwards compatibility. Why hasn't it been done? I suppose because no > programmer thought it was important enough to bother. But the source > code is available. If it is important to you, just make the changes and > submit them. Perhaps your name could go down in Internet history as the > Fool who fixed the foolish MDA kludge. The system doesn't even unmunge the message when it is resent. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
