In message <199404080641.XAA16437@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>, Brent Chapman write
s:
>Forwarded without comment;
>From: tedw@microsoft.com
>[..]
> backread <list> <#ofmsgs>
>
>and receive the last <#ofmsgs> messages sent to that mailing list.
One thing I like about Majordomo is its simplicity of design and
low learning curve. It does just enough work in order to get the
job done well, without overloading the user (and the system) with lots
of commands they will hardly ever use, or can be done better by existing
methods.
It seams to me that this "backread" command falls into this last
category. Mail readers already have built up lots of neat ways
to search mail messages, I don't think it's worthwhile to have
Majordomo duplicate all of them. I think it's better for the
user to just get the archive of the last month, and view it with their
favorite file viewer/mail reader or whatever and do it that way.
If we start allowing people to start searching archives by subject,
then they'll want to search the text, then they'll want boolean
expressions, and then who knows what.
I can sympathize with those people on less powerful systems, but
I think Majordomo has to draw the fine line between doing its job
well and trying to do somebody else's job less well.
(speaking for myself, and not as a developer, even though I haven't
contributed a line of code yet to majordomo. I'm much better at
arguing about it. ;-) )
--Dave
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