From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/42459 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: jacobs@genehack.org (John S. J. Anderson) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: db-backed mail back end Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:39:46 -0500 Organization: genehackCorps Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <87k7u9g58t.fsf@mendel.genehack.org> References: <87g04x7w4q.fsf@inanna.rimspace.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035177692 11498 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 05:21:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 05:21:32 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: (qmail 8129 invoked from network); 23 Jan 2002 02:41:22 -0000 Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu (mail@129.7.128.13) by mastaler.com with SMTP; 23 Jan 2002 02:41:22 -0000 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 16TDKV-00026i-00; Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:40:03 -0600 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:39:58 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (qmailr@sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA07648 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:39:47 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (qmail 8113 invoked by alias); 23 Jan 2002 02:39:47 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 8108 invoked from network); 23 Jan 2002 02:39:47 -0000 Original-Received: from apollo.spinnet.net (63.160.140.6) by gnus.org with SMTP; 23 Jan 2002 02:39:47 -0000 Original-Received: from mendel.genehack.org (mail@5664genehack.068.popsite.net [64.24.91.229]) by apollo.spinnet.net (8.11.3/linuxconf) with ESMTP id g0N2djC28087 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:39:45 -0500 Original-Received: from jacobs by mendel.genehack.org with local (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 16TDKF-0003uK-00 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:39:47 -0500 Original-To: ding@gnus.org X-Attribution: john X-URL: genehack.org Original-Lines: 37 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090006 (Oort Gnus v0.06) XEmacs/21.4 (Common Lisp, i386-debian-linux) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:42459 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:42459 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes: > If we were to design a mail back end that's supposed to scale to > several hundred thousands of messages in thousands of groups -- how > would we do that? Perhaps somebody has pondered this question > before. :-) I offer a semi-serious answer to your joking question, not because I think it needs one, but because I'd really like to see this happen and I don't have the skills to do it myself[1]. 8^)= There are a couple of emailers out there that exist basically as thin layers over a DB backend, so it might be informative to pull them apart and see how they work. Pronto is one, I think. I would contend (after thinking about it for, oh, 30 seconds) that the Right Way(tm) would be to have one large table for the mails (with obvious things normalized out to lookup tables, of course), with a field or fields allowing arbitrary groupings ("Mailing List:", etc.) Then "groups" as they currently exist in Gnus become views, searches become much easier to do, etc. Apologies if this is all so obvious as to not be worth mentioning... Oh, and because this seems like a good time to mention it: something like on a Gnus skeleton would be _*awesome*_. john. Footnotes: [1] And I could acquire them, true, but I'd like it sooner than that. So... -- It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things. --- Calvin