Re: nnmaildir (was: db-backed mail back end)

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Josh Huber <huber@alum.wpi.edu> writes:

> prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:
>
>> nnmaildir stores NOV information in one file per message.  Finding
>> an article's NOV information is as fast as finding the article
>> itself.
>
> Indeed, I've been meaning to try nnmaildir out.  Would it be very
> painful to migrate from nnml to maildir?  Perhaps I'll try it for just
> a couple groups to start with...

I'd be interested in hearing your results... I had lots of trouble
trying to run both nnml and nnmaildir, but since then Paul J. has
fixed lots of stuff.  I haven't tried running both since before the
fixes though.  Still using nnmaildir alone on a secondary machine, but
my main mail/news, on the main machine, is still non-nnmaildir and
mostly nnml.

I think, if you have some semi-large to large groups you may notice
some significant slowness in initial startup as nnmaildir processes
everything, but after starting, you may find group entry to be
noticably faster.  I don't hnow how much of that applies since Pauls
new release and other fixes.

One thing attractive about nnmaildir to me is that it doesn't care
about adding and subtracting from outside gnus.  It just finds and
processes what is there (in `new') on entry.  Also plays ball nicely
with procmail (like nnml does) since procmail has a builtin
recognition of maildir setup, and knows how to write to nnmaildir
groups.