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+From: Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com>\r
+To: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>, Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org>,\r
+ David Mazieres expires 2014-08-01 PDT\r
+ <mazieres-m3ssd5tf29djdm7jf9qfi4atf2@temporary-address.scs.stanford.edu>\r
+Subject: Re: folder and path completely broken in HEAD?\r
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+Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 20:24:33 +0100\r
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+\r
+\r
+> The trick here is that it's easy to miss people who are happy with\r
+> current functionality. Adding functionality to address newly-identified\r
+> use cases makes a lot of sense. But removing functionality runs the risk\r
+> of only discovering that people were relying on it after the fact,\r
+> (Which seems to have happened here).\r
+\r
+Yes indeed. I think one thing that I, at least, hadn't realised is that\r
+people have lots of strange mail layouts often to work around problems\r
+in mail agents (notmuch or others) or filesystem limitations etc.\r
+\r
+>>> The idea of path: is that it's the exact filesystem directory, relative\r
+>>> from the maildir root, with an rsync like ** syntax for recursive\r
+>>> matching.\r
+>\r
+> This definition of "path:" seems good. It covers a lot of cases that the\r
+> original "folder:" did not and allows precise, predictable control.\r
+>\r
+>>> Turns out people want folder: to hide maildir implementation\r
+>>> details like cur and new.\r
+>\r
+> Which is something that "folder:" always did.\r
+>\r
+>>> These are not compatible, or you need to add a syntax that's not easy\r
+>>> or discoverable.\r
+>\r
+> OK. So I won't argue that we don't need two different syntaxes here. But\r
+> I will continue to discuss a use case that was addressed before and is\r
+> no longer.\r
+>\r
+>> I think many of us would agree, but there were users who wanted to\r
+>> distinguish new and cur, and in at least one case, the toplevel as\r
+>> well.\r
+>\r
+> So now, "path:" allows for that, right?\r
+>\r
+> My concern is not so much that "path:" was added to address new things,\r
+> but more than "folder:" was modified in a way that dropped useful\r
+> functionality, (beyond just fixing bugs in "folder:" such as the\r
+> accidental support of stemming).\r
+\r
+One possibly perverse remark: it wouldn't surprise me if someone\r
+actually used the stemming. I have used folders called old older and\r
+oldest and that probably can be excluded by stemming.....\r
+\r
+All I am really saying is that any change we made was going to break\r
+some people's setups.\r
+\r
+>> I think it is unfortunate that we need two variants, but I think they do\r
+>> do different things.\r
+>\r
+> I'll accept that.\r
+>\r
+> But, while I have heard a good definition of "path:", (see above), I\r
+> haven't heard a good one for "folder:" yet. Can you provide that?\r
+\r
+I think folder:foo/bar means "In the maildir exactly foo/bar"\r
+\r
+>> Also, I think any single user will find one matches their setup and\r
+>> use that one essentially exclusively:\r
+>\r
+> The current discussion is evidence against that. We have a user of\r
+> folder: that can no longer get at the desired functionality, (that used\r
+> to exist).\r
+\r
+Sorry I wasn't trying to suggest that the current setup does everything\r
+people want (clearly not!): just answering your question about the\r
+differences being confusing. since each user will probably only use one\r
+of them they probably become accustomed to its use.\r
+\r
+Indeed, I think of the choice as being analogous to allowing the user to\r
+choose which path scheme they like (so sort of like a customisation):\r
+maildir folder based or filesystem path based.\r
+\r
+>> Indeed, it may be that a third option of roughly a maildir++: search term\r
+>> might solve David's use case.\r
+>\r
+> Or just making "folder:" index each term of a filesytem path like it\r
+> used to do. And if that doesn't give sufficient control to some users,\r
+> then "path:" is available.\r
+\r
+We could do this. It might break things for user who are using the new\r
+syntax.... Maybe we could make an initial / match the root of the\r
+maildir store. But I think some people will dislike any of the options.\r
+\r
+>\r
+> I've already lost what I would have preferred, (a single syntax for all\r
+> use cases---which was lost not to a design problem, but simply the\r
+> implementation difficulty of requiring a custom query parser). I really\r
+> would not like to see things continue down to have a *third* syntax.\r
+\r
+So this third syntax would fit with my view of it being a customisation\r
+like thing.\r
+\r
+Best wishes\r
+\r
+Mark\r
+\r
projects / notmuch-archives.git / commitdiff