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Reports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggeratedReports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggeratedPosted Nov 25, 2010 4:27 UTC (Thu) by jamesh (guest, #1159)In reply to: Reports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggerated by Tara_Li Parent article: Reports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggerated
Because the configuration files for these mail filters _are_ programs. Granted they have a limited command set and control structures, and the procmail filtering language is a bit bizarre looking, but they are programs.
This isn't the same as using a full fledged programming language to parse a simple key/value configuration file.
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Reports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggerated Posted Nov 26, 2010 16:40 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
I disagree, writing rules to sort emails has nothing to do with programming. Many MUAs today have graphical tools to build rules like that; is everybody using such an MUA a programmer? Clearly not.
Reports of procmail's death are not terribly exaggerated Posted Nov 26, 2010 21:32 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] writing rules to sort emails has nothing to do with programming. I wonder what your definition of programming is such that writing these rules isn't it. It seems to me that writing a procmail rule file involves the same skills and mental processes as, say, writing a Bash program, which I assume falls within your definition of programming. It's a matter of composing software to control a machine. In a company, it's probably the same person who does both. There is a continuum from programming to simple end use (setting the time zone on a computer isn't programming), and the line of demarcation is fuzzy, but coding the configuration files I see in the article fall well on the programming side of it in my opinion. If a graphical tool to build mail handling rules is complex enough, I would call that programming too. Programming doesn't have to be done in text (the original programming was done by plugging wires).
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