>If it meant I could keep the front-end (shell) semantics but work with >slightly different back-end objects, I would at least be able to exploit >muscle memory.
I understand that goal, and I think there are no technical obstacles to just adding "straight" IMAP support to nmh; all of the pieces are there in the protocol and I've mapped out in my head how it would all work. It's just a significant pile of work; I cannot overstate how many assumptions are baked into the underlying code in terms of file access. I would do it, but my personal and professional life has been challenging for a while now. Maybe after AI takes my job I'll have some more free time? Or maybe I'll use AI to write the code. >in all other regards I think you're right. Fuse FS type overlay would make >this entirely moot. I understand the desire for that, but to reiterate my concerns about that approach: - FUSE is not portable. I know, you're going to say that FUSE runs on different OSes, but when you dig down into it you find that a FUSE filesystem cannot easily run across different OSes without a lot of work as the different OSes have different filesystem interfaces. - It's complicated; much more complicated than doing a "straight" adding of IMAP to nmh. - The underlying interface you'd present wouldn't necessarily be something that nmh could use (see the existing alpha-level abandoned implementations of which there have been several), which would either require adding more support to nmh or adding more complexity to the FUSE filesystem. That being said ... if someone wants to do this, they should! Don't let me stop you! Maybe get AI to write it? >I remember a few decades ago having similar feelings about "can we map MH >onto IMAP" and the retorts were "yes, but you do it first" along with "no, >and it's a stupid idea" and I think this "can we make MH work with more >modern <x>" is the hisenberg problem of our age: we love the s/w but the >rest of the world keeps on inventing things. STOP INVENTING THINGS! I understand that desire, I do ... but I've come to realize the world is going to move on whether I want it to or not, and my choices are to either deal with it or opt out. And I still want to email other people who aren't nmh users, so I'm just going to have deal. --Ken
