Re: E-mail for Pilot

[Jay B Parker <jbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Ken Rossman - NYC SE wrote:
> On Wed 13 Jan 1999, Jay B Parker wrote:
> > I haven't done any C-client programming myself, but theoretically they're
> > supposed to completely abstract whether you're accessing POP, IMAP, or
> > local mail files, right?
> 
> Most front end mail agents do that anyway (that is, after you have gone
> through configuring them).  All you see is mail messages...  you don't know
> or care that they are being fetched via POP3 or IMAP4.  You only need to
> know that when you configure the mail tool in the beginning.

Right.  My understanding is that the C-client libraries are a back-end
that makes it easy to write those kinds of front-ends.  Once the
programmer gets connected to a mailbox, the code he/she writes to
manipulate the mailbox is the same whether it's on an IMAP server, a
POP server, or a local mailbox file.  The programmer isn't responsible
for issues like mailbox formats and network protocols.

> In any case, I don't see how a package like the one above could totally
> abstract the type of mail delivery you want to use, since there are some
> very important, basic decisions you need to make before choosing a delivery
> mechanism (like, where does your "master" mail file actually live, for
> example?)

True.  For that reason I would guess that the code for initializing a
mailbox does vary somewhat with the mailbox type.  Again, I've never
written any code with these libraries.  All I really know is that, if
they do what I think they do, then their Perl interface might be very
useful to Derek in writing his email conduit.

-jbp

-- 
Jay Parker - Unix Systems Analyst - MSU Information Technology Services
 jbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  -  http://www.msstate.edu/~jbp/  -  601-325-0741

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