On Saturday 05 November 2011 22:40:03 Murray S. Kucherawy wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-postfix-us...@postfix.org > > [mailto:owner-postfix-us...@postfix.org] On Behalf Of David Southwell > > Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 9:41 AM > > To: postfix-users@postfix.org > > Cc: /dev/rob0 > > Subject: Re: executive parser (was: Re: spf configuration woes) > > > > Just to add weight to my last posting - the use of a " " as a critical > > symbol is really quite idiotic. What cannot be seen should never be that > > significant! > > The current RFC defining email message format is RFC5322, and it uses > leading whitespace as line continuation in header fields. Its > antecedents, going back as far as RFC733 (1977) and perhaps further, do > the same thing. Thus, your assertion appears to be in conflict with quite > a bit of operational history and experience.
I think what is being forgotten here is that administrators have to cope with a whole variety of software. The history of one narrow sphere (e.g.) mail is being used to define an approach which does not think of the needs of administrators who are pushing for software engineers to adopt uniform approach across the whole spectrum. Hence thoughtful engineers incorporate diagnostic parsers and html configuration tools. IMHO postfix has been very slow to develop an apporocah which places the needs of system administrators in the forefront of its development strategy. People make mistakes. Even the most experienced administrators. Administrators are not primarily programmers. They look at configuration files. During a busy day they do not want the hassle of having to ask themselves the question "What do spaces do in this .config .cf file?" Good configuration files make their formatting requirement obvious. That is why I say the use of " " is, in an administrator's context, idiotic. It is idiotic because it demands that adminstrator to ask himself/he rself the question is this " " significant or insignificant. When there are hundreds of " " in a file the luckless adminstrator has too much on his/her plate when trying to fix a problem as quickly as possible. I have been taking this list silently for years. Amonst a lot of genuinely helpful contributions I have witnessed a regular splattering of rudeness and arrogance by some long standing contributors heaped on the heads of luckless administrators trying to succesfully configure postfix. The design of Postfix's configuration system and supporting documentation represents the honest efforts of people who have a single point of focus namely: Making postfix work when it has been given the appropriate configuration data. IMHO Postfix needs to add to its goals a determination to make configuration a breeze rather than a challenge. That means diagnostic and corrective parsers and or an html based configuration interface. Such facilities would cut down the traffic on this list and stop a few people looking down their noses at those who make a mistake.
