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Re: IMAP is teh r0x0rz! [was: Re: getting copies of own posted messages; was: Re: ??: Stunned by aptitude.]



Ron Johnson wrote:
> Maybe it's because I keep d-u messages is semi-annual history
> folders so directories never get above 10,000 files, but what
> problems do Maildirs have?

> Needing to open many files instead of one?

    Needing to deal with that many files in any capacity, ever.  I've
had the displeasure of being the administrator of a qmail setup that
would accept all mail (smtp-time rejection, what's that!?) then filter
then generate bounces to bogus email addresses in spam.  Yeah, 50,000
maildir queues that take 20 minutes to stat are no fun.  That pretty
much swore me off that idiotic idea.

> I'll take that over an errant EOF wiping out a large chunk of a
> directory.

    Let's see.  I've been using mbox since the early 90s with my first
Netcom account and elm.  Or was it late 80s?  Anyway, let's just say
about 15 years.  In that time know how many EOF problems I've hit in all
of my mail in 15 years?

    0.

    I've had 2 hard drives take a nosedive on me in that time.

    Or not to put too fine a point on it, opening up one maildir
directory with more than, say, 2000 messages in it will have wasted more
time than I have ever had wasted by "errant EOFs".

> Yes I can restore from backup, but
> (a) the bug that caused the errant EOF is still there, and

    Or in my case, not.  I guess you could say that the bug that caused
my hard-drive to eat itself is still there...

> (b) bringing back the back-up emails without introducing duplicates
> or overwriting new mails is a hassle.

    Not so much any more.  Pull out archives, merge, run "remove
duplicates" tool, done.  But then, I haven't had to do that, either,
since when I lose my mail stores to hard drive failures I generally am
no concerned about the "merge" portion.


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