Subject: Re: [MORG] sortdisplay

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:42:31 +0100

Barry Leiba writes:
>>> This is *very* much *not* true of my mailbox and my client.  Please,
>>> let's not make these kinds of assumptions as we develop protocols.
>>
>> We don't really have a better option.
>
> The rest of your explanation isn't needed; you misunderstand me.
>
> We obviously have to pick a way to sort on "to" that makes sense.  
> That mechanism has to take into account whether there's one or 
> multiple "to" addresses.  My point isn't that what we're settling on 
> it wrong.  It's that as we design these protocol, we should not make 
> assumptions about how people use email, and, in particular, how 
> people address their email.

Aren't use cases exactly such assumptions?

I can think of a way to reach a better result than just taking the first 
address: Tie the choice of address on which to sort to the TO/FROM/... 
keys in the SORT command's search program. So SEARCH DISPLAYFROM UTF8 
SUBJECT foo sorts by the first address in From, but SEARCH DISPLAYFROM 
UTF8 FROM foo sorts by the first address that matched the FROM 
search-key. Oooh oooh very neat, but IMO not worth the bother.

IMO, sorting by the first To address is sufficient. We won't reach 
nirvana that way, but the defects are ones we've suffered for decades 
and they aren't on my top-10 list of omissions.

Arnt

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:42:44 -0700

Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:

> I can think of a way to reach a better result than just taking the 
> first address: Tie the choice of address on which to sort to the 
> TO/FROM/... keys in the SORT command's search program. So SEARCH 
> DISPLAYFROM UTF8 SUBJECT foo sorts by the first address in From, but 
> SEARCH DISPLAYFROM UTF8 FROM foo sorts by the first address that 
> matched the FROM search-key. Oooh oooh very neat, but IMO not worth 
> the bother.
>

Speaking as an individual: I tend to agree that is the most tractable 
solution.