Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:47:29 -0500 From: Ken Hornstein <k...@pobox.com> Message-ID: <201312040147.rb41lt8b001...@hedwig.cmf.nrl.navy.mil>
| list functionality that exists now ... well, everything I've seen says | to me that group syntax is basically useless except in the context of | sending blind distribution lists. No, nothing that conveys information is useless - sometimes it might be duplicative and so unnecessary, but even that isn't useless. The group syntax allows the user to indicate why a particular address was included in the message destination list ... for example, suppose some new feature for MH were being discussed (offered) that would affect the way that nmh and exmh communicate (perhaps to better handle the exmh cache file in the face of manipulation of the messages by nmh, or something). I might choose (rather than sending to everyone on either the mh or exmh mailing lists) to pick some subset of the actual developers for each and send to them (perhaps adding a few other people with experience in cache coherence or something). By using the group syntax, I can tell the recipients why each of them is receiving the message... To: mh-developers: Ken Hornstein <k...@pobox.com>, ... ;, exmh-developers: valdis.kletni...@vt.edu, ...;, caching-experts: ...; Then if you wanted to reply, and your reply was related to some internal area of nmh implementation you might want to just reply to the listed mh-developers and not send to others who wouldn't care about the internal interface of some nmh library function. Without the addresses at all (blind list usage) you could only reply to me. Without the groups, you have to guess at which of the complete set of addresses are mh people, and which are not - you probably could do that, and get it right, but not everyone would recognise the appropriate addresses. The group syntax provides the extra info to allow that. kre ps: as indicated in the message I just sent a short while ago, this is not a request for any changes in nmh - just an indication that the actual syntax that the e-mail standards provide is not as useless as perhaps you have been thinking. _______________________________________________ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers