On 05-Sep-2001 Dave Palmer wrote:
>
>> Question :
>> What is the better place to put such code ?
>> Do We've 1) to patch a server code or 2) to code a little front/back end ?
>>
>> My answer is 2) 24 hours/day - seven days/week
>
> Heh... yeah... I suppose for the purposes of XMail, seeing as though it is a
> ***project*** done one's free time, this is the most valid approach. Yet...
> in my experience... work-arounds (front-ends, back-ends etc) quickly
> resemble hacks... which then require #1... but #1 is then that much more
> complicated due to the addition of 'work-arounds' (e.g. hacks)
>
> Here's a design question... in the server code (pardon this... I haven't
> spent hardly any time examining the source) is each function (i.e. tcp,
> authentication, messages, configuration etc.) broken into individual
> objects?
>
> Here's my thinking... I just finished a large project for a client where we
> developed a system sorta like an EDI system. It was built using Java... but
> basically behaved much the same as an smtp server behaves... listens on a
> tcp port, reads messages (in one format -- xml) then reformats the message
> (xsl) to then send that message to a receiver (typically a database). We
> noticed that the message formats would change quite a lot... so we
> abstracted it to a level where we didn't really care what the message looked
> like... we just had an implementation to meet the standard with what ever
> the message we were dealing with.
>
> We basically took the processing of the message out of the server code...
> and just implemented it as an object (which was simply a Java interface).
>
> Is that possible with the XMail server? Would something like that make
> sense? Take anything dealing with messages (files etc.) out of the server
> code, and simply implement it as an interface, that way... if I'm not
> completely nuts... would enable you to not have to worry about all the
> different places in the server code where you deal with messaging.
It'd be awesome, just do it.
Perhaps We'll have a better XMail, XMail++.
See, 9 years ago I went in Seattle to hear a man speaking about virtual interfaces,
reusable objects and polymofphism. And then NT and COM born ...
The response to this email should be way too long, repeating flame topics I followed
too many times during my career.
- Davide
