5 ms·

Mailman: An incoming email processing microframework in Ruby

39 points by Titanous 16y ago

spooneybarger 16y ago
bad name... as there is a very established project already using the name.. http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html
- veemjeem 16y ago
  yeah, it will make googling the name nearly impossible...
- blantonl 16y ago
  I would recommend "railmailer"
  - helium 16y ago
    Why? This project has no dependencies on Rails.
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Yes. Sorry to say, but this was a huge red flag for me - if the author is apparently unaware of a project that it is that well-known, he has no business writing mail software. (I know that he comments on this very page that he is aware of GNU Mailman...)
  - spooneybarger 16y ago
    check the comments on his blog. he knew about it ahead of time and didnt think it was an issue because someone could just google 'ruby mailman'. apparently the idea of encroaching on another project's name never occurred to him as an extremely impolite ( to put it kindly ) thing to do.
technoweenie 16y ago
Astrotrain powers Lighthouse and Tender Support: http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain
- Titanous 16y ago
  I think you'll find that Mailman is much more lightweight (it doesn't require a database and uses Mail, not TMail), and easier to use. Obviously you had very specific requirements when writing Astrotrain, but I'd love it if you'd try Mailman.
  - cdibona 16y ago
    I've tried mailman, over 10+ years ago.
    - Titanous 16y ago
      Yeah, I tried it too. I've never been a big fan. Shared passwords for moderation, really? If people really hate the name, I'll take suggestions, but I tried pretty hard to come up with alternatives already. Personally I don't think it's a big deal because it's easy enough to search for 'ruby mailman', it's not like we don't have to do it for just about every other project (mustache, integrity, chef, god, etc).
      - cdibona 16y ago
        Remember that Firefox was named phoenix, then firebird, then firefox. People take this kind of thing pretty seriously. I'm just saying it would save you a lot of trouble later.
      - catch23 16y ago
        Well if there are specific issues on mailman, it will make it that much hard to google for, especially since the other mailman project is similar. Your project name doesn't even make sense... a mailman delivers mail, not route incoming mail. The one who actually routes/sorts your real-paper mail is probably just called the mail clerk at the post office. The mailman is just the guy who delivers the mail -- hence the name of the 10+ year old project.
davidu 16y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Mailman http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Mailman Very popular...very well known.
crazydiamond 16y ago
Could you tell us what other similar projects/gems exist in ruby? How is this different or better than them ? Are you handling gmail accounts, TLS authentication ? Is this 1.9 compliant ?
- Titanous 16y ago
  Astrotrain is the only other ruby project I know of: http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain Mailman is very lightweight, has Rails integration, and doesn't require a database to store routes (Astrotrain does). Instead, it uses a Sinatra-like DSL to define routes and conditions. Gmail accounts can be handled using a MDA like getmail and the built-in maildir support in Mailman. Mailman works fully with 1.8.6, 1.8.7, 1.9.1, 1.9.2, REE and JRuby.
koenigdavidmj 16y ago
Looks a lot like a light version of the Pythonic and much beastlier Lamson (http://www.lamsonproject.org/ http://www.lamsonproject.org/) created by Mr. Shaw.
- Titanous 16y ago
  Yes, it was modeled after Lamson in some ways, but I didn't think that writing yet another mailserver was necessary, and I wanted Rails integration.
  - quadhome 16y ago
    Interesting. When I wrote my lamson-based daily journaling software, I also found the yet-another-mail-server aspect of Lamson redundant. The syntax of mailman looks a bit nicer. Good unit tests. Any example apps?
    - Titanous 16y ago
      No example apps yet, but there will be within area weeks.
      - Titanous 16y ago
        I meant 'a few', not 'area', but Android got in the way.
    - macmac 16y ago
      "daily journaling software" - that sounds interesting. Is it available?
      - quadhome 16y ago
        http://github.com/quad/stardate http://github.com/quad/stardate It's whimsical. It's lamson. You can demo it by e-mailing punchit@stardate.quadhome.com with your first entry. It'll kick back a confirmation e-mail. Reply to it. After that, it'll e-mail you daily. Reply to those with your journal.
atomon 16y ago
I'm not sure why everyone's focusing on the name, but this looks like a great project. I was just wishing that something like this existed yesterday, and poof, here it is. Great work! My only suggestion would be to support imap/gmail integration and the like without requiring an extra step such as getmail.
- Titanous 16y ago
  Dealing with IMAP is tricky. In order to support it properly, and leave the messages on the server after processing, a list has to be stored on the client. I'd rather leave that to a mature MDA than implement it myself. However, I will look into providing a easy configuration for Gmail.
  - atomon 16y ago
    Sounds great! I'd love to be able to register for a gmail account and then immediately be able to start processing incoming mail.
sigil 16y ago
Wow. When choosing a name for a new project, isn't it standard practice to look for name collisions first -- google it, check freshmeat, apt-cache search, make search in freebsd ports, etc?
- Titanous 16y ago
  I knew of GNU Mailman when I chose the name.
  - sigil 16y ago
    Hmm, then it's going to look like you're picking a fight (whether or not that's really the case). Get creative with the name, it's more fun anyway. Maybe some HNers can help you out.
    - bradgessler 16y ago
      Mailrb Mailerb ...
donw 16y ago
Very cool; mail handling is an area where Ruby needs work. One question: Does it properly quote non-ASCII characters in mail headers? That's been a big pain point for me over the years, which I fixed by being lazy and using Javamail. Good names for mail gems are hard to come by; my Javamail wrapper for JRuby ended up going through four different names because Mail, Mailer, Postman and Postal were all taken (we finally called the damn thing Postinius). I'll at least offer my suggestion for a name; what about 'Takkyu'? Takkyubin is a very famous delivery service over here in Japan.
- Titanous 16y ago
  It uses the Mail gem to do all the parsing, and I think that it handles non-ASCII just fine. http://github.com/mikel/mail/ http://github.com/mikel/mail/
  - donw 16y ago
    Ah, RFC2822 is new in the past six months, then. If he's fixed the email address parsing bugs, then I have a lot less work to do now. :)
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
I think the MTA->Maildir->Mailman route is odd; why not go MTA->Mailman directly, like, say, GNU Mailman, maildrop/procmail, or any other mail filter I've ever seen?
- Titanous 16y ago
  You can use it as a local MDA/"mail filter" as well. Mailman accepts messages via Standard Input. I don't recommend this, because you have to load and unload Ruby every time a message comes in. While this may be okay if you only have a few messages coming in, it will quickly become unbearable if you have any sort of volume. This will be even worse if you loading the Rails environment, as it can take several seconds or several tens of seconds, depending on the app size. Side Note: There are at least three different projects using the name maildrop, and dealing with email, and I figured out which one you were talking about through context very easily.

39 points by Titanous 16y ago

bad name... as there is a very established project already using the name.. http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html

veemjeem 16y ago
yeah, it will make googling the name nearly impossible...
blantonl 16y ago
I would recommend "railmailer"
- helium 16y ago
  Why? This project has no dependencies on Rails.
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
Yes. Sorry to say, but this was a huge red flag for me - if the author is apparently unaware of a project that it is that well-known, he has no business writing mail software. (I know that he comments on this very page that he is aware of GNU Mailman...)
- spooneybarger 16y ago
  check the comments on his blog. he knew about it ahead of time and didnt think it was an issue because someone could just google 'ruby mailman'. apparently the idea of encroaching on another project's name never occurred to him as an extremely impolite ( to put it kindly ) thing to do.

technoweenie 16y ago

Astrotrain powers Lighthouse and Tender Support: http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain

Titanous 16y ago
I think you'll find that Mailman is much more lightweight (it doesn't require a database and uses Mail, not TMail), and easier to use. Obviously you had very specific requirements when writing Astrotrain, but I'd love it if you'd try Mailman.
- cdibona 16y ago
  I've tried mailman, over 10+ years ago.
  - Titanous 16y ago
    Yeah, I tried it too. I've never been a big fan. Shared passwords for moderation, really? If people really hate the name, I'll take suggestions, but I tried pretty hard to come up with alternatives already. Personally I don't think it's a big deal because it's easy enough to search for 'ruby mailman', it's not like we don't have to do it for just about every other project (mustache, integrity, chef, god, etc).
    - cdibona 16y ago
      Remember that Firefox was named phoenix, then firebird, then firefox. People take this kind of thing pretty seriously. I'm just saying it would save you a lot of trouble later.
    - catch23 16y ago
      Well if there are specific issues on mailman, it will make it that much hard to google for, especially since the other mailman project is similar. Your project name doesn't even make sense... a mailman delivers mail, not route incoming mail. The one who actually routes/sorts your real-paper mail is probably just called the mail clerk at the post office. The mailman is just the guy who delivers the mail -- hence the name of the 10+ year old project.

davidu 16y ago

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Mailman http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Mailman Very popular...very well known.

crazydiamond 16y ago

Could you tell us what other similar projects/gems exist in ruby? How is this different or better than them ? Are you handling gmail accounts, TLS authentication ? Is this 1.9 compliant ?

Titanous 16y ago
Astrotrain is the only other ruby project I know of: http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain http://github.com/technoweenie/astrotrain Mailman is very lightweight, has Rails integration, and doesn't require a database to store routes (Astrotrain does). Instead, it uses a Sinatra-like DSL to define routes and conditions. Gmail accounts can be handled using a MDA like getmail and the built-in maildir support in Mailman. Mailman works fully with 1.8.6, 1.8.7, 1.9.1, 1.9.2, REE and JRuby.

koenigdavidmj 16y ago

Looks a lot like a light version of the Pythonic and much beastlier Lamson (http://www.lamsonproject.org/ http://www.lamsonproject.org/) created by Mr. Shaw.

Titanous 16y ago
Yes, it was modeled after Lamson in some ways, but I didn't think that writing yet another mailserver was necessary, and I wanted Rails integration.
- quadhome 16y ago
  Interesting. When I wrote my lamson-based daily journaling software, I also found the yet-another-mail-server aspect of Lamson redundant. The syntax of mailman looks a bit nicer. Good unit tests. Any example apps?
  - Titanous 16y ago
    No example apps yet, but there will be within area weeks.
    - Titanous 16y ago
      I meant 'a few', not 'area', but Android got in the way.
  - macmac 16y ago
    "daily journaling software" - that sounds interesting. Is it available?
    - quadhome 16y ago
      http://github.com/quad/stardate http://github.com/quad/stardate It's whimsical. It's lamson. You can demo it by e-mailing punchit@stardate.quadhome.com with your first entry. It'll kick back a confirmation e-mail. Reply to it. After that, it'll e-mail you daily. Reply to those with your journal.

atomon 16y ago

I'm not sure why everyone's focusing on the name, but this looks like a great project. I was just wishing that something like this existed yesterday, and poof, here it is. Great work! My only suggestion would be to support imap/gmail integration and the like without requiring an extra step such as getmail.

Titanous 16y ago
Dealing with IMAP is tricky. In order to support it properly, and leave the messages on the server after processing, a list has to be stored on the client. I'd rather leave that to a mature MDA than implement it myself. However, I will look into providing a easy configuration for Gmail.
- atomon 16y ago
  Sounds great! I'd love to be able to register for a gmail account and then immediately be able to start processing incoming mail.

sigil 16y ago

Wow. When choosing a name for a new project, isn't it standard practice to look for name collisions first -- google it, check freshmeat, apt-cache search, make search in freebsd ports, etc?

Titanous 16y ago
I knew of GNU Mailman when I chose the name.
- sigil 16y ago
  Hmm, then it's going to look like you're picking a fight (whether or not that's really the case). Get creative with the name, it's more fun anyway. Maybe some HNers can help you out.
  - bradgessler 16y ago
    Mailrb Mailerb ...

donw 16y ago

Very cool; mail handling is an area where Ruby needs work. One question: Does it properly quote non-ASCII characters in mail headers? That's been a big pain point for me over the years, which I fixed by being lazy and using Javamail. Good names for mail gems are hard to come by; my Javamail wrapper for JRuby ended up going through four different names because Mail, Mailer, Postman and Postal were all taken (we finally called the damn thing Postinius). I'll at least offer my suggestion for a name; what about 'Takkyu'? Takkyubin is a very famous delivery service over here in Japan.

Titanous 16y ago
It uses the Mail gem to do all the parsing, and I think that it handles non-ASCII just fine. http://github.com/mikel/mail/ http://github.com/mikel/mail/
- donw 16y ago
  Ah, RFC2822 is new in the past six months, then. If he's fixed the email address parsing bugs, then I have a lot less work to do now. :)

JoachimSchipper 16y ago

I think the MTA->Maildir->Mailman route is odd; why not go MTA->Mailman directly, like, say, GNU Mailman, maildrop/procmail, or any other mail filter I've ever seen?

Titanous 16y ago
You can use it as a local MDA/"mail filter" as well. Mailman accepts messages via Standard Input. I don't recommend this, because you have to load and unload Ruby every time a message comes in. While this may be okay if you only have a few messages coming in, it will quickly become unbearable if you have any sort of volume. This will be even worse if you loading the Rails environment, as it can take several seconds or several tens of seconds, depending on the app size. Side Note: There are at least three different projects using the name maildrop, and dealing with email, and I figured out which one you were talking about through context very easily.