On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 11:37:28AM -0700, David Champion wrote: > > I think you're on to the biggest issue: Neither Mutt nor the patch > > promote maintainability or extensibility of UI enhancements (I'm not > > really in a position to evaluate this, only stating what I think past > > objections were). Both Mutt and the patch need to be taught to do > > things the right way, both to make maintaining that feature easier, > > and to make future extensibility more managable. > > I'm a big fan of gradual core enhancements that promote extensibility > (including patching). I don't know that this should be a primary focus > for mutt right now, but I think any community efforts toward this should > be taken seriously.
I mostly agree, but there are points where you have to simply acknowledge that what you have does not lend itself to gradual improvement, and a rewrite really is necessary. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I think it might be. Where I work, some teams have had a "make the smallest useful change" policy, justified by a desire to minimize risk while still getting things done. Over time, this has led to software that has become extremely fragile and nearly impossible to change. > > FWIW related to this: One thing I've always wanted to see was to > > create a uniform API for the UI, and also for mailboxes, so that it > > was easier to basically completely replace the UI, and to implement > > new mail store types. If we used console-based widgets for the UI > > I believe there was a discussion a while back -- maybe 10 years or so, > even -- about building on the mx.c framework to make mailbox drivers > more of a thing. Anyone remember this? I do, but not in more specific terms than you describe. But I think I actually started that thread. Twice. :) -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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