Re: POP3 mail fetcher that supports unreliable connections?
On 2003-11-04 15:42:40 -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 at 21:54 GMT, Vincent Lefevre penned:
> > In some sense, yes. But if fetchmail didn't use the delivery system, I
> > wouldn't have lost mail.
>
> And if I hadn't typed 'rm -rf' in my root directory, I wouldn't have
> lost my system.
If you're stupid enough to type 'rm -rf' in your root directory, it's
your problem. *You* are typing 'rm -rf', whereas the delivery system
is generally not configured by the user.
> In both cases, the behavior is well documented, and in both cases,
> user error can end in disaster.
No, it is not well documented. fetchmail makes some assumptions on
the local delivery (which worked perfectly without fetchmail).
Moreover the local delivery configuration is out-of-control for
the user (one needs to have a root access, which is not acceptable
for a user program).
> fetchmail follows the "unix philosophy" of chaining well-defined
> capabilities so as not to reinvent the (less capable) wheel.
Completely wrong! I hope you don't think that for instance, a MUA
should use the local delivery system for copying messages to a
different mailbox!
> If you don't like that approach, then don't use the tool, but don't
> claim that the tool is poorly designed just because you don't like
> this philosophy and furthermore didn't take the time to understand
> the basics of how the tool worked.
It is poorly designed as a POP3 mail fetcher tool, as it relies on
special support of the local delivery configuration.
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> - 100%
validated (X)HTML - Acorn Risc PC, Yellow Pig 17, Championnat International
des Jeux Mathématiques et Logiques, TETRHEX, etc.
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / SPACES project at LORIA
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