Todd A. Jacobs wrote:
> Okay, at the risk of starting a flame war, it's still silly. Allowing
> users to have 100,000 messages in a single directory is insane, and is
> purely the fault of the administrator for not forcing users to download,
> sort, archive, or otherwise deal with their mail in a sensible way. Use
> inode quotas, for goodness sakes.
That falls under the realm of customer interface. They prided themselves
on letting the customers do what was needed to get the job done even if the
customers didn't know what the hell it was they needed. While I don't
generally agree with the position I do understand it since their business was
paid for by said customers. ;)
With that said let's apply it to the conversation at hand. Are you
implying that for the sake of sanity the individual they should place
limitations on the email they manage on their own system. While my 100k
example was an extreme case (but a *real* case) even the cases where it was a
mere 15-20k messages (several a month) took a while to work through. That's
not that much when you get down to it. I've got one folder here that is
sitting at 3k and growing, another at 5k but fairly static though the contents
shift. I'm also not into archiving tons of mail so I'd classify my usage as
moderate, not heavy.
> Moving 100,000 emails into a single file just shuffles the problem
> around.
Agreed. But the problems you listed are easier to manage on a day by day
basis, even when managing cpu/disk consumption, than having to bang your head
against maildir with standard tools.
> All that is somewhat irrelevent, though, in that maildir was not
> designed to provide better performance (although it can, in some cases),
> but to provide guarantees that all messages are safely written to disk.
Never said it did. I just wanted to air out the common problem I had to
deal with on a near daily basis because I know it is a point of consideration
for many members of this list. I know that people here archive all messages
that pass through lists their on. Years of messages on disk.
> Personally, I use both, for different reasons and in places where they
> make sense. Always use the right tool for the job at hand; zealotry is
> inefficient.
Yes, it is. Which is why I wanted to point out the problems associated
with it so the individual(s) who read the discussion can make an informed
choice. I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone for using maildir (or courier,
or cyrus, or whatever) even though I personally would not use it. Zealotry
goes both ways. Ignoring that there are problems doesn't make 'em go away. :P
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature