Re: [Exim] Washington mbx again

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Συντάκτης: Peter Lister
Ημερομηνία:  
Προς: Dave C.
Υ/ο: exim-users
Αντικείμενο: Re: [Exim] Washington mbx again
> What would be _REALLY_ nice, would be an 'Exim' IMAP/POP daemon, or at
> least one with a style similar to exim, as far as flexibility,
> configurability and reliability. So far everything else I've seen is
> either far too simple - either you get no configuration at all - just
> /etc/passwd and /var/spool/mail in mbox format, or more complex than
> the space shuttle and severely lacking in any useful documentation.
> Something that used a single, textual config file ala exim, with clear
> and straightforward documentation.


Somewhat OT, but my GBP 0.02 is to urge Peter to create a library with a neat
API such that any scripting language (or other configuration scheme) will fit.
I certainly intend that Sychron's software will be have this facility (in both
"flexibility" and "feature" senses of the word).

Exim's configuration/filter scheme is OK (certainly compared to the sendmail of
old), but it is Yet Another Configuration Language. Ousterhout observed that
new application doesn't require the wheel-reinvention of a new configuration
scheme, though many end up with precisely this: it is a waste of time
redeveloping the associated boilerplate, and never yields the right level of
configurability (at least in the first instance); he addressed the problem with
tcl. Further, given that other code has evolved robust, secure and efficient
connection handling, security etc, there's little point in reinventing that,
either. Probably file locking as well. :-)    


Personally I favour perl over tcl, but if a C API can be used in this way, Swig
(www.swig.org) generates script bindings for all the major script languages.
Apache mod_perl (and now mod_python) achieves this by allowing pretty much
*anything* to be done via Perl/Python, even though there is an Apache
configuration file format - the core Apache code doesn't care how it gets the
information.

-- 
Peter Lister         P.Lister@???    PGP (RSA): 0xE4D85541
Sychron Ltd          http://www.sychron.com  PGP (DSS): 0xBC1D7258
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