PyBalsa?

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Michael Hudson <mwh21 at cam.ac.uk>:
[... re why mailers get written in C ... ]

| Well, they could have done it in C++...
|
| I agree wholeheartedly with you.  To me, implementing a MUA in C/C++
| is just silly.  Use Python, use scheme, use lisp, use smalltalk, use
| ocaml, use tcl, use perl (shudder) - use just about anything else, and
| you're pretty likely to end up with a better, more stable solution
| faster.
|
| Mind you, I hate all forms of GUI programming, some I'm not going to
| write that killer MUA in Python ... it does surprise me that noone has
| written one yet though.  Or maybe they have, and I just don't know
| about it?

The thing about Python is that most of it's already done, thanks to
the imaplib, poplib and smtplib modules.  I wrote one for my own use
on BeOS, and the library modules saved an awful lot of time.

Mine isn't any kind of killer, though, and that's fine with me.  I have
enough troubles without trying to keep a bunch of email users happy.
Maybe the strange breed of programmer who does want to take on that
kind of grief has an altogether different outlook on life, where the
advantages of Python aren't so obvious.  I just wanted to get it done,
these guys are going to be working on it the rest of their natural lives.
I think there might be a handful of reasons why they want to write in C++.

They want to keep their source private.  They feel that it will be slow
(that's mostly silly, but startup and some text processing can indeed
be pretty pokey.)  They don't want their program to be exposed to the
vagaries of an interpreter that the user obtains, installs and maintains
separately.  Maybe they want to implement everything themselves, this
is not uncommon, and the parts Python would do for them are the fun
parts - remember, they have to write a GUI anyway.

	Donn Cave, donn at oz.net