[Spambayes] Spambayes trashes PST file links in OuchLook

[Chuck Cole]

Spambayes regeneration is a primary cause of the problem, if not the
exclusive cause.   The effect is deterministic, and without any error
trapping as I noted.  The lack of error trapping for this is serious,
even if not within the Spambayes code implented so far and even if it is
only a Microsoft "feature".

I made no request to audit that code myself, and am not inexperienced in
coding and software technology.  I have no doubt that Mark knows the
code he wrote very well, but the deterministic path of this damaging
error runs from Spambayes through OutLook and into the Windows registry
without traps and is a detectable error condition.

My report of this problem of no trapping for a damaging error (and any
other such reports) should simply go on the spindle of things to
consider someday or be cautioned in the docs if too hard for Spambayes
to trap.  Such problems should not simply be ignored as you suggest.  I
don't believe ignoring serious usage hazards is good practice.  Most
folks do not consider untrapped bugs to be entertaining, but YMMV.

I have a remedial solution for the effect that I implemented on my own.
I will be cautious in using Spambayes to prevent this or other unguarded
problems from occurring again. Pity that Spambayes functions cannot be
trusted to not damage OutLook data.

I thanked Mark for his patience and diligence in exploring this with me.
His responses were helpful, though did not contribute to a solution of
any kind.  Your response doesn't seem germane to actual problem solving
at all.


Chuck



> -----Original Message-----
> From: skip at pobox.com [mailto:skip at pobox.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 7:11 AM
> To: cncole at earthlink.net; spambayes at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Spambayes trashes PST file links in OuchLook
>
>
>
> As he is the author of the SpamBayes Outlook plugin, I've no
> doubt that what
> Mark wrote about how it works is correct.  It would appear
> you don't have
> that level of confidence.  You are, of course, more than
> welcome to audit
> the code of the plugin yourself.  Since it is open source, it
> is available
> to you.  You can browse the code online via this link:
>
>     http://spambayes.cvs.sourceforge.net/spambayes/
>
> Alternatively, you can simply check the code out of the CVS
> repository by
> following the instructions on this page:
>
>     http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=61702
>
> Skip
>