Re: Is anybody working on Mulberry now?

--On Tueday, 19 Dec 2017 06:43:12 -0800, Brian Reid
<[email protected]> wrote:

> In my opinion, the primary reason why Mulberry is so wonderful
> is that it is  essentially the work of one person; that is a
> formula for top quality in any  software provided that the one
> person is capable.

Yes, although I would have said "one person or a closely
integrated design team".   While one person working by him or
herself can often produce a spectacular result, I've seen
spectacularly bad one come out of the same situation.   In
Mulberry's case, there is something else important -- that "one
person" is very thoughtful, listened (and listens) carefully to
input.  As or more important, he was very actively involved in
the development of the IMAPv4, ACAP, and "Lemonade" and other
extension work -- actively enough to not understand the
standards but the reasons for the various design decisions
involved.

That shows in Mulberry, both in the features various people have
mentioned, but in its obvious understanding of MIME and how to
handle multiple body parts, support for disconnected mode that
actually works, address and multiple folder and mailbox
management, and so on.  

FOr me, the most important Mulberry feature that I rarely see
elsewhere is disconnected mode.  Supporting it properly requires
most of the above and requires that they be done well.  Mulberry
doesn't get it completely right -- it could be more efficient
about some things and does not support one synchronization
scenario --  but all of the basic functionality is there along
with IMAP functionality that "just works" and the features
others have mentioned.  Few of the alternative clients even
bother to try and all of the others that I've seen that do try
show a profound lack of understanding about why that mode was
important and why it was added to IMAP.

     john