Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
Ken Hornstein k...@pobox.com writes: I have decided to learn the MH system and use it for all my (non-professional) email needs. From what I understand, there are two different modern-day incarnations of MH: nmh and GNU mailutils. I need your advice because I can't make up my mind on which to choose. Since I have to learn from scratch, and it will entail some serious investment of time, I would like to be sure I make the right choice. So, this is a bit of an awkward question, because we're kind of competitors. Our relationship with the GNU Mailutils people is ... well, I wouldn't call it friendly competition, because mostly we don't interact. This isn't out of any animosity (at least not on our end, and AFAICT on Sergey's end). We're all busy, these are part-time projects, and I personally think it's a dick move to go and trash your competitor in public. I never see any messages from Sergey trashing nmh, so I'm assuming he feels the same way. I'd rather people look at the projects objectively and make their own decision based on their needs and requirements. Obviously the developers of a project are biased toward the implementation they're working on. So I would say our stance toward each other is polite awareness. Yes, we're aware of each other; I occasionally look at GNU Mailutils to see what it supports, and I'm assuming Sergey does the same with nmh. Our biggest overlap is within the MH-E community; there are a number of MH-E users who use GNU Mailutils as their backend. There are a number that use nmh as their backend as well (some of the MH-E developers are members of this mailing list), and AFAIK both implementations work equally well with MH-E. I believe Sergey interacts directly with the MH-E people on their mailing list; I don't, I rely on the MH-E developers who are also on this list to keep me abreast of anything relevant. But I don't think we're hostile to the MH-E people; we added a feature they asked for a few months ago. As the lead developer for MH-E, I can vouch for Ken's representation of the MH-E story. So, that being said ... I will try to answer your question as objectively as possible. I would encourage you to get some opinions from the GNU Mailutils people as well for alternate viewpoints. I hope you will forgive me if I talk more about nmh than I do about Mailutils; I would rather not give you incorrect information, and I obviously know more about nmh than I do about Mailutils. Project History: - Nmh is a direct descendant of the old MH project; it was converted from the original MH at UCI by Richard Coleman, and then managed by a succession of people; right now I've done the last two releases and will probably do the next one. The code has been reorganized a LOT since MH 6.8.5, but except for some ancient features that we garbage collected we are essentially MH plus a lot of extra stuff. Our biggest weakness is in MIME handling, but 1.5 made some important steps forward and I think 1.6 will solve some of the remaining warts (there will still be plenty more, but I think it will be loads better). One downside to being a descendant of MH is that there is still a lot of old cruft in there; we're been working on cleaning it up, but sometimes it's slow going. - GNU Mailutils is a clean-room implementation of a library to support a mail client, and it has MH commands implemented on top of that library. On the positive side that means a lot of the original MH warts don't exist. On the negative side that means that not every MH feature that nmh supports exists (I don't have a comprehensive list; I would encourage you to check out the documentation for the respective projects). Regarding features, the two biggest things that Mailutils supports that nmh does NOT support are IMAP and Sieve (a mail filtering language). Those are things that I would love to get to at some point, but they're low on my personal priority list and if they are requirements for you unfortunately nmh would not be a good choice. There are options where you could use something like fetchmail to retrieve messages from an IMAP server and then incorporate them into nmh, but it's not integrated. Those are the two items that I'm aware of that Mailutils supports. As Ken says, fetchmail can pull mail from IMAP servers and mail can be filtered with dovecot-lda with the Sieve plugin (on my list of things to try). Now, regarding support; the main nmh community participates on this mailing list. In terms of documentation, we have the man pages that come with nmh (which I feel are reasonably complete, but lack some overall guidance for a beginner) and we have the O'Reilly MH book, which can be found at: http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/ It mentions nmh briefly, but nearly everything in there should still apply to nmh. ...and Mailutils. I hope this helps, and if you have further questions
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
otah...@gmx.ca wrote: Thanks for the clarifications. What about ease of use, especially from a newbie perspective? Also, which scripting language would you suggest? Is there already a repository for nhm scripts? There's a good number of example scripts in Jerry Peek's MH book† though that book dates from the 90s. There's no repository of nmh scripts, perhaps there should be... or something like a wiki. Scripting is most relevant if you use the command-line rather than a GUI front-end. Of the scripts I've collected written by others, plain Bourne shell seems to be popular. Most of what I have is zsh and I would very much recommend it. I've recently written scripts to create a temporary folder (using hard links) based on notmuch search results. notmuch supports MH folders, is very fast for searching and can identify threads but it's nothing like as nice to use as nmh for most other mail operations. Oliver † http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/ ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
Thus spake Oliver Kiddle: I've recently written scripts to create a temporary folder (using hard links) based on notmuch search results. notmuch supports MH folders, is very fast for searching and can identify threads but it's nothing like as nice to use as nmh for most other mail operations. Another search recommendation: I've been using mairix for searching fo years now. It uses symlinks to create a folder of search results (instead of hard links) and has no problem instantly returning hits for the 473k messages I have. -- J. ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
There's a good number of example scripts in Jerry Peek's MH bookâ though that book dates from the 90s. There's no repository of nmh scripts, perhaps there should be... or something like a wiki. We have $(srcdir)/docs/contrib, and there are a few things in there now. So if you have stuff, feel free to put it in there (but don't forget to add it to Makefile.am if you want it to make it into the distribution tarball). --Ken ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
Dear Ken, In message 201402122353.s1cnr2zh015...@hedwig.cmf.nrl.navy.mil you wrote: I have decided to learn the MH system and use it for all my (non-professional) email needs. From what I understand, there are two different modern-day incarnations of MH: nmh and GNU mailutils. I need your advice because I can't make up my mind on which to choose. Since I have to learn from scratch, and it will entail some serious investment of time, I would like to be sure I make the right choice. So, this is a bit of an awkward question, because we're kind of competitors. Our relationship with the GNU Mailutils people is ... well, I wouldn't call it friendly competition, because mostly we don't interact. This isn't out of any animosity (at least not on our end, and AFAICT on Sergey's end). We're all busy, these are part-time projects, and I personally think it's a dick move to go and trash your competitor in public. I never see any messages from Sergey trashing nmh, so I'm assuming he feels the same way. I'd rather people look at the projects objectively and make their own decision based on their needs and requirements. Obviously the developers of a project are biased toward the implementation they're working on. So I would say our stance toward each other is polite awareness. I'm just a user of nmh (as workhorse for exmh) and not involved with the development of either nmh nor GNU mailutils. In such an external position I usually find it quite informative to look at the project statistics for example collected by Oloh [1]; you can find the data for nmh at [2] and those for GNU mailutils at [3] [1] http://www.ohloh.net [2] http://www.ohloh.net/p?ref=homepageq=nmh [3] http://www.ohloh.net/p?ref=homepageq=mailutils Short comparison of the Oloh data: nmh GNU mailutils --- lines of code 163K164K current contributors6 1 activityhighvery low Total Summary: ... 2,221 commits ... 6,913 commits made by 35 contributors made by 13 contributors Best regards, Wolfgang Denk -- DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk Detlev Zundel HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: w...@denx.de Never underestimate the power of human stupidity when it comes to using technology they don't understand. ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
Thanks for the clarifications. What about ease of use, especially from a newbie perspective? Also, which scripting language would you suggest? Is there already a repository for nhm scripts? ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
On 13 February 2014 at 19:49, otahler@gmx.cawrote: Thanks for the clarifications. What about ease of use, especially from a newbie perspective? I'm a 25yr user of [n]mh, also having contributed a minor code change many years ago. I'll talk about my experiences with nmh, I have never had a desire to explore mailutils. Ease of use is in the eye of the beholder. What you have to understand is that nmh provides a set of unique commands that have a single use, rather than a monolithic email program that does everything. Additionally the tools can be used via a GUI (many exist, my current preference is sylpheed) or right in a putty/ssh/terminal session. I probably don't use 50% of the function available, but I've been able to archive my email each time I've moved systems and been able to unarchive it an read it as though it was just sent. I have messages that are 20+ yrs old that I've saved, and use the same tools to manipulate them. Also, which scripting language would you suggest? Is there already a repository for nhm scripts? I've never had a reason to script anything - I might be the exception. The only thing I've done is changed GUIs that I've used over the years. I started with xmh (X Windows based client), moved to exmh (TCL based client), to finally settling on Sylpheed. I use fetchmail to grab my email from my ISP and then do all the processing on my local machine. Over the years that machine has run AIX, SCO OpenServer, BSD, and now Linux. I don't know if my experiences are normal, but they're how I make use of nmh. Hope this information helps in your decision. jerry // Jerry Heyman | We are all born ignorant, but // Amigan Forever :-) | one must work hard to remain stupid \\ // heymanj at acm dot org | -- Benjamin Franklin \X/http://www.hobbeshollow.com| ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
On 2014-02-13 20:24, heym...@bellsouth.net wrote: I've never had a reason to script anything - I might be the exception. The only thing I've done is changed GUIs that I've used over the years. I started with xmh (X Windows based client), moved to exmh (TCL based client), to finally settling on Sylpheed. It's curious that you mention Sylpheed merely as a GUI. I do have some experience with Sylpheed's fork, called Claws Mail. In fact, I have opted to use MH after having considered whether to use Claws Mail, which is nice and I like but does not allow me all the raw power that you can get with many small single-purpose tools that can be used in scripts. I knew already that Sylpheed/Claws Mail used the MH system, as they are sitting on top of it. But now I was bit suprised to hear that they are just a GUI, because I thought of them as much more than a GUI. Just out of curiosity: do Sylpheed/Claw Mail use the original MH programs as backend, or did they write their own implementation of MH? ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
On 13 February 2014 at 20:56, otahler@gmx.cawrote: On 2014-02-13 20:24, heym...@bellsouth.net wrote: I've never had a reason to script anything - I might be the exception. The only thing I've done is changed GUIs that I've used over the years. I started with xmh (X Windows based client), moved to exmh (TCL based client), to finally settling on Sylpheed. It's curious that you mention Sylpheed merely as a GUI. I do have some experience with Sylpheed's fork, called Claws Mail. In fact, I have opted to use MH after having considered whether to use Claws Mail, which is nice and I like but does not allow me all the raw power that you can get with many small single-purpose tools that can be used in scripts. I knew already that Sylpheed/Claws Mail used the MH system, as they are sitting on top of it. But now I was bit suprised to hear that they are just a GUI, because I thought of them as much more than a GUI. Just out of curiosity: do Sylpheed/Claw Mail use the original MH programs as backend, or did they write their own implementation of MH? I haven't looked closely at the sylpheed code lately. I know that I have configured it to explicitly use some of the MH commands (the most important being pack and inc). I probably over-simplified the description of sylpheed, which will bother Hiroyuki Yamamoto (the author), should it get back to him. It (sylpheed) is one of the few email GUI tools that understands and can make use of the MH file/folder structure, which is what drew me to it in the first place. As I said previously, I use fetchmail to pull all my email from the ISP to my local machine. Sylpheed is my email GUI client of choice, and it stays running all the time. Every 10min (configurable) it explicitly runs the MH command 'inc' to bring any new email into my inbox. Periodically, I have a 'tool' defined to compress (actually calls out MH command 'pack') to clean up my inbox. Sylpheed is NOT just a GUI that sits on top of MH as it has it's own style of aliases, and can't use the standard format that MH uses. Hopefully I've erased the confusion that I orginally caused in my description. jerry // Jerry Heyman | We are all born ignorant, but // Amigan Forever :-) | one must work hard to remain stupid \\ // heymanj at acm dot org | -- Benjamin Franklin \X/http://www.hobbeshollow.com| ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 1:56 PM, otahler wrote: I knew already that Sylpheed/Claws Mail used the MH system, as they are sitting on top of it. But now I was bit suprised to hear that they are just a GUI, because I thought of them as much more than a GUI. Just out of curiosity: do Sylpheed/Claw Mail use the original MH programs as backend, or did they write their own implementation of MH? I used Sylpheed briefly years ago, and I was under the impression that is was the later. It recognized MH folders, but it did not leverage the underlying commands for it. Maybe things have changed since then. IIRC, I used Sylpheed at the time to deal with encrypted and signed mail, something MH/nmh does not support directly. --ewh ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
[Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
Hi I have decided to learn the MH system and use it for all my (non-professional) email needs. From what I understand, there are two different modern-day incarnations of MH: nmh and GNU mailutils. I need your advice because I can't make up my mind on which to choose. Since I have to learn from scratch, and it will entail some serious investment of time, I would like to be sure I make the right choice. My criteria for choosing eventually boil down to: (1) which of the two projects provides better support to the user (community, docs, etc)? (2) which is easier to learn and manage? My needs are fairly simple, so I am not even considering the specific features offered by each project. I am sure that both projects can fully provide what I need, and much more. I Can you help me in making a decision? Thanks Otto Tahler ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Should I learn nmh or GNU mailutils?
I have decided to learn the MH system and use it for all my (non-professional) email needs. From what I understand, there are two different modern-day incarnations of MH: nmh and GNU mailutils. I need your advice because I can't make up my mind on which to choose. Since I have to learn from scratch, and it will entail some serious investment of time, I would like to be sure I make the right choice. So, this is a bit of an awkward question, because we're kind of competitors. Our relationship with the GNU Mailutils people is ... well, I wouldn't call it friendly competition, because mostly we don't interact. This isn't out of any animosity (at least not on our end, and AFAICT on Sergey's end). We're all busy, these are part-time projects, and I personally think it's a dick move to go and trash your competitor in public. I never see any messages from Sergey trashing nmh, so I'm assuming he feels the same way. I'd rather people look at the projects objectively and make their own decision based on their needs and requirements. Obviously the developers of a project are biased toward the implementation they're working on. So I would say our stance toward each other is polite awareness. Yes, we're aware of each other; I occasionally look at GNU Mailutils to see what it supports, and I'm assuming Sergey does the same with nmh. Our biggest overlap is within the MH-E community; there are a number of MH-E users who use GNU Mailutils as their backend. There are a number that use nmh as their backend as well (some of the MH-E developers are members of this mailing list), and AFAIK both implementations work equally well with MH-E. I believe Sergey interacts directly with the MH-E people on their mailing list; I don't, I rely on the MH-E developers who are also on this list to keep me abreast of anything relevant. But I don't think we're hostile to the MH-E people; we added a feature they asked for a few months ago. So, that being said ... I will try to answer your question as objectively as possible. I would encourage you to get some opinions from the GNU Mailutils people as well for alternate viewpoints. I hope you will forgive me if I talk more about nmh than I do about Mailutils; I would rather not give you incorrect information, and I obviously know more about nmh than I do about Mailutils. Project History: - Nmh is a direct descendant of the old MH project; it was converted from the original MH at UCI by Richard Coleman, and then managed by a succession of people; right now I've done the last two releases and will probably do the next one. The code has been reorganized a LOT since MH 6.8.5, but except for some ancient features that we garbage collected we are essentially MH plus a lot of extra stuff. Our biggest weakness is in MIME handling, but 1.5 made some important steps forward and I think 1.6 will solve some of the remaining warts (there will still be plenty more, but I think it will be loads better). One downside to being a descendant of MH is that there is still a lot of old cruft in there; we're been working on cleaning it up, but sometimes it's slow going. - GNU Mailutils is a clean-room implementation of a library to support a mail client, and it has MH commands implemented on top of that library. On the positive side that means a lot of the original MH warts don't exist. On the negative side that means that not every MH feature that nmh supports exists (I don't have a comprehensive list; I would encourage you to check out the documentation for the respective projects). Regarding features, the two biggest things that Mailutils supports that nmh does NOT support are IMAP and Sieve (a mail filtering language). Those are things that I would love to get to at some point, but they're low on my personal priority list and if they are requirements for you unfortunately nmh would not be a good choice. There are options where you could use something like fetchmail to retrieve messages from an IMAP server and then incorporate them into nmh, but it's not integrated. Now, regarding support; the main nmh community participates on this mailing list. In terms of documentation, we have the man pages that come with nmh (which I feel are reasonably complete, but lack some overall guidance for a beginner) and we have the O'Reilly MH book, which can be found at: http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/ It mentions nmh briefly, but nearly everything in there should still apply to nmh. I hope this helps, and if you have further questions about nmh please don't hesitate to post them here. --Ken ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
