On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 05:51:28PM -0500, Kyle Wheeler wrote: > On Thursday, October 23 at 02:23 PM, quoth Robin Lee Powell: > > I gather there's now another sidebar patch. > > Oh? Are you sure you aren't getting confused by the transfer of > maintainer from Thomer M. Gil to Terry P. Chan?
mutt-ng had a sidebar feature; I have no idea if that's the same code as the one at http://www.lunar-linux.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44 , which is what I was comparing to. Is mutt-ng's sidebar the same as that one? > > Is there some reason it, and anything else useful from mutt-ng, > > hasn't been rolled into mutt proper? > > Much of what was mutt-ng *has* been rolled into mutt proper. The > sidebar patch is the only significant thing I'm aware of that > hasn't. Lovely. > The question about that particular sidebar patch is one that comes > up every now and then, and has been answered several times. Rocco > Rutte (one of the primary mutt bug squishers, and one of the three > founders of mutt-ng) reviewed the patch in detail. He said the > following (http://marc.info/?l=mutt-dev&m=112133798519807&w=2): Thank you. I did do a MARC search, but the results were unhelpful. > For example, the sidebar patch available for mutt looks to > work at first sight but there're many things just heavily > broken or things you really don't want to stay in the code > (like using snprintf() and strlen() to "calculate" the amount > of digits of a number.). > > Really to integrate a patch by means of merging its > functionality with the existing to get a better code base is > just much more difficult than it sounds especially when you > keep in mind that it also takes time to get an idea of what > the source is supposed to do [and] how. > > Essentially: the sidebar patch is large (1789 lines), complex, and > appears to be poorly written. Those are all characteristics of > code you want to stay as far away from as possible. My > understanding is that that patch touches pieces of mutt's source > that should have nothing to do with displaying a "sidebar", such > as the mbox parsing code. Because of this, it produces unfortunate > side-effects. You have only to look into the mutt archives a few > weeks back to find people complaining that the patch causes mutt > to hang in some circumstances. *Neat*. Yeah, I had been wondering about that. > And yet, the developer of the sidebar patch does not appear to > provide support to those who use it (at least, not on the mutt > users mailing list), and does not seem interested in cleaning it > up, explaining it, or doing anything else that would be necessary > or useful to getting it integrated with mainline mutt. *nod* > > The sidebar in particular sure seems like a really, really nice > > feature. > > Are you willing to reimplement it? Cleanly? Or explain the innards > of the current sidebar patch to the primary mutt developers? At this time that's unlikely, but I'll keep the option in mind. > > Does current mutt have header caching? > > Yes, and has for almost four years. > > Mutt also has message caching (and has for almost two years), > which mutt-ng does not have. I checked "man mutt" before posting; I forgot to check "man muttrc". My apologies. "man muttrc" doesn't explain why it's not on by default; can I get a pointer to that? > Mutt enjoys ongoing development. Mutt-ng provided a good catalyst > for more development in mutt, but essentially atrophied as mutt > development was renewed---mutt-ng hasn't been modified since April > 2006. Mutt-ng has, for all intents and purposes, been subsumed by > the original mutt. The sidebar patch, as it stands, was rejected. Thank you for clearing things up for me! Sorry to have failed to find for what are obviously FAQs. -Robin -- They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons." And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something other than the default outcome?" -- http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
