From: Daniel Stenberg (Daniel.Stenberg@sth.frontec.se)
Date: Tue May 18 1999 - 12:06:03 CDT
On Mon, 17 May 1999, Peter C. McCluskey wrote:
> (I'd integrate Critmail with a recent version of Hypermail if I were
> pretty sure that the result would get into the main Hypermail
> distribution, but I suspect that by the time I finished, Hypermail would
> have changed enough that it would still take some effort).
Hi Peter
As one of the guys doing work on hypermail I feel obliged to comment your
offer to extend hypermail's capabilities.
To write code for hypermail that is likely to work in a future version too
(i.e if you start on something now that you wanna send us after many months
have passed) I'd advice you to:
A) Write all your new main functionality in new source files. Limit the
interface with a strict set of input and output. Preferably your functions
could be tested and debugged stand-alone (this actually goes for all
functionality in hypermail) with some compiler flag set.
B) Send us patches at an early state that adds the entry calls to your
functions. They could very well be conditional like #ifdef
WHEN_MY_STUF_WORK. If we have that already in the code, it is easier to
adjust it if we decide to change those parts of the code.
C) Rely on basic principles of hypermail, not specific implementation
details. What I mean with this may of course be a bit problematic to
grasp if you're very familiar with the code, but if you're unsure of if
you can use certain structs etc, you're free to mail us. All us authors
are on this list!
D) If the feature is cpu intensive or otherwise likely to be wanted to get
shut off at times, make it configurable!
We do need help. We appriciate help. We are dependent on help!
--
Daniel Stenberg - http://www.fts.frontec.se/~dast
ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol