From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2002-09-05T13:24:57+09:00
Subject: Re: New list: ruby-modules - for module developers...

----- Original Message -----
From: "michael libby" <x@ichimunki.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: New list: ruby-modules - for module developers...


> > You're writing an email client? In Ruby, I assume/hope?
> > With what GUI?
>
> Yes, actually a multi-purpose text editor in Ruby using Tk-- essentially a
> set of menus and an base Editor class/widget. The base editor is then
> subclassed into "modes"-- in my first iteration, one mode will be a
> rudimentary Ruby source code editor,  two modes will be email related-- a
> "directory" browser and an email message editor-- and a help mode (not
> entirely sure of how this will look yet, but the guts are already there to
> do something, um, helpful). So it's more like emacs, and less like
> Outlook.

Interesting, but not the way I think.

> My main goals for the email components: ability to handle PGP signatures,
> built-in Bayesian spam filtering, and basic stuff like having an inbox,
> local mail storage, ability to send, receive, read, reply, forward an
> email.

Good, very good so far. Um, what's a "Bayesian" spam filter?

I've thought of assigning positive and negative weights to keywords in
a stoplist and an anti-stoplist. Is it anything like that?

Or is it perhaps an AI type of thing where you tell the app "This is spam"
and it tries to learn what spam is?

But I should quit guessing.

> > I'm interested in a Ruby email client (see the thread
> > a few weeks back). I've looked into SGmail, but I can't
> > run it until I figure out how to compile the one last
> > missing piece (uconv) on Windows.
>
> I looked into that too. But I'm too lazy to install modules, so I never
did
> finish installing the program. It did look interesting in that it appears
> to provide a web interface.

I'd forgotten that part if I ever knew. What good is a web interface,
anyway? Serious question, not sarcasm.

> > And anyhow, I think it is Tk-based, so I'm not sure
> > how much I'd like the look-and-feel.
>
> I'm sure my project will be a disappointment in this regard, but I believe
> I've got a design that will make it possible (if not easy) to port to
> either a console mode (i.e. curses) or to another toolkit.

That's great.

Have you looked at the (pre-alpha) FreeRIDE project? They've wrapped
the Scintilla widget so that the editor is SciTE-like. (I have no
previous familiarity with those things, but it seems pretty cool.)

We're going to develop an editor API so that scripts can be written
in Ruby. This might at some point in the future make a nice plug-in
replacement for parts of your app.

But you're probably building in much the same functionality now.

I don't really *hate* Tk, but it does look a little clunky to me.
Particularly such things as the Listbox widget.

> I hope to have some draft code in a public place by the end of next week.
I
> will certainly announce it on ruby-talk once I do.

That's great.

Hmm. I wonder if someone should make an "email client library" to handle
the common stuff... then it would be simpler for people to develop these
things, and there would be more to pick from.

I have an email client "in my mind" but I will probably never write it.
It's a lot of work. I guess it's in the category of dreamware.

Hal