On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Simon Cozens wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Yves Orton) writes:
> > Besides this is there really any reason for yet another MIME::Lite
> > replacement?
>
> Yes, there is, but Mail::SendEasy isn't it. :) See
> http://simon-cozens.org/draft-articles/email.html for a pretty rant about the
> current state of mail handling modules.

I think your article sort of misses the point.  You spend too much time
ranting about amount of code and slowness, but I think the _real_ problem
with Mail::Box is twofold:

- Not so great API.  The API isn't so bad that I'd call it awful, but it's
  inelegant and bulky, and definitely doesn't make simple things simple.
  OTOH, it _does_ do basically everything you'd ever want for mail
  handling/sending, and if you want to do something complex, it'll do that
  that.

- This API problems are compounded by the docs, which are too
  nitty-gritty, and basically treat every method and class as equally
  important.  Since there so many methods and classes, this makes it
  really hard to find the bit you need.  The docs also sometimes lack
  important details (like formats of returned values, like is time UTC,
  etc.).  If the docs were revamped to start with a tutotial and overview,
  I think that would go a long way to improving the distro.

The slowness and amount of code are not nearly as important as the fact
that the API is inelegant.

This was a big concern of mine with the DateTime code.  I _hope_ that
whether or not it's lots of code (which it is) and slow (which it can be),
that at least the API is easy enough to learn that it makes doing simple
things simple.  OTOH, if you want to do something really complex, you can.
And most importantly, it handles all the niggling little corner cases, and
it (modulo bugs ;) does everything correctly.

I'd love to see someone work with Mark Overmeer to take the existing
Mail::Box code and completely revamp the API.  But keep most of the
internals, because he's dealt with a _lot_ of the niggling corners of mail
handling, and there's no need to reinvent that wheel.


-dave

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