Evolution sucks??

[Paul Lussier]

"Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com> writes:

> On 2/13/07, Paul Lussier <p.lussier at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Ben has often asked why I don't use IMAP.
>
>   I don't think I actually said that.  I mainly complain that I can't
> use MH and friends with IMAP.  And go off on long, rambling tangents
> about IMAP functionality.  And continuously reiterate that IMAP rocks.
>  And claim everyone should use IMAP.  Okay, I guess I effectively did
> say that.  Scratch this whole paragraph.  ;-)

Well, technically I think the question was something along the lines
of "Why do you require the mail storage to be physically co-located
with the mail client?" or something to that effect.

> Well, IMAP and mail processing (filtering, sorting, scripting,
> folding, spindling, mutilating, etc.) are really about two different
> things.  IMAP is for accessing mail once it's processed.

Well, true, but in most cases (at least for me) when I deal with
e-mail, it's usually from within a corporate environment where I may
or may not have complete control of the mail environment.
Additionally, even if I am in control of the mail environment, I try
to at least approximate the environment my users need to exist within
so I can (hopefully) find problems before they experience them.

That being said, when I read my e-mail, I expect to read in a
pre-sorted state.  When I fire up my mail client, I don't want to have
to wait for it to sort/process all my mail.  Given that I can receive
hundreds of e-mails a day, it can take a long time to process it
all. Why process it all at once vs. as it comes in?  So, yes, I
completely agree with you, processing mail is separate from reading
it!

>   But, since they aren't related,

But unfortunately, they're very intertwined from the perspective of
IMAP and most IMAP clients.

> I've always applied different tools to the question of filtering.
> I've always combined my use of IMAP with server-side
> filtering/scripting.

Unfortunately approach fails miserably in the
my-mail-server-isn't-controlled-by-me universe.

>  I use the mail "server" to do all my mail processing, and my mail
> client(s) to do my mail reading.  (In my case, the IMAP server has
> sometimes been my own PC.)

Great solution for a system where you own or otherwise control all the
pieces from the receiving MTA and the MUA.

> Hmmm, come to think of it, are there IMAP servers that properly
> support the MH format?

I think cyrus does, but it's not simple.  cyrus uses a very mh-like
store to begin with, but it's not entirely the same.

> (I know UW-IMAP claims to, but UW-IMAP claims a lot of things....)

Yeah, like being an IMAP server ;^P

>> (my rational for switching was/is that the command line access has
>> become somewhat less important than some features gnus offers).
>
>   Since we're all here already, what do you like/dislike about gnus?
> (I've never used it, myself.)

The thing that made me switch to gnus was simply that it was
emacs-based, and more of my life has become emacs-centric in the past
few years.  I could have used any one of emacs-based mail clients, but
gnus was the one that a) seems to have the most support, b) is still
developed, c) handles multiple backends including IMAP (thought I
don't use it) and d) had the best documentation.

Things I like about gnus?  It has better threading support than most
clients I've seen, and it's threading is completely customizable.
Gnus also knows how to handle newsgroups, and it's nice to have one
client for both mail and news, since, when you get down to it,
mail/news is really all the same.

I wouldn't say there's any one thing about gnus that I could call it's
"killer" feature which I think everyone *has* to have.  I'm certainly
not going to advocate it like mutt users do their client of choice ;)

<shrug> It's a mail client.  For me, the "killer feature" is that it's
in emacs.  That reason alone is enough to make either try it out or
run from me screaming and pulling your hair out ;) (not that I don't
*already* have that effect on people...).

-- 
Seeya,
Paul
--
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A: Yes.                                                               
> Q: Are you sure?                                                    
>> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.           
>>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?