[Mailman-Users] Suggestion For Better Way of Doing List Configuration

[Jon Forrest]

I'm relatively new to Mailman but I've managed
to build it from source and set up a few lists,
with generous help from this list.

While working through issues relating to
creating a standard list configuration, I started
to feel that there was a fundamental flaw in the
way Mailman lists are configured that I couldn't quite put
my finger on. Of course, this could be due me not knowing
or understanding something, and, if so, I'll be happy
to retract what I'm going to say below.

Yesterday, I realized that I had made a mistake in
how I had configured all my lists (I only have about
6 so far, so this is no great tragedy). This was entirely
my fault, and not due to anything amiss in Mailman.
So, using the web interface, I fixed the mistake on
all 6 lists. This wasn't too bad, but it got me to
thinking what I would have had to do if I had 1,000
lists.

All of a sudden the thought hit me that would it
be better if Mailman lists were designed kind of like
classes in an object oriented programming language.
There would be one super list which would be configured
with all the standard values you want every list to have.
Then, there would be lists derived from the super list,
which would only need to be configured to have values
different than the super list. There could even be lists
derived from these lists, and so on down the line.

With this design philosophy it would be very easy to
make changes that effect multiple lists because the
change would only have to be made in one place. I haven't
thought it through but it might even be possible for this
class-like design to include list membership making
it easier to have one list contain other lists as members.

Given that Mailman is written in Python, my naive impression
would be that this should be relatively easy to implement.
(As my old boss Mike Stonebraker used to say, it's just
"a simple matter of software").

In reading the Mailman documentation I saw a mention of
an "umbrella list", but the only description here says
"umbrella lists" are depreciated and will be replaced with
a better mechanism for Mailman 3.0". Are umbrella lists
somehow related to what I'm talking about?

Am I completely out to lunch or does this make any sense?

Cordially,



-- 
Jon Forrest
forrest at ce.berkeley.edu
Computer Resources Manager
Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept.
305 Davis Hall
Univ. of Calif., Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1710
510-642-0904