distributed mailing list? (Was Re: [SunRescue] Question...)

Fri May 25 02:00:12 CDT 2001

On Fri, 25 May 2001, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:

> I'd always assumed that those all php/mysql all the time sites were at
> least doing some simple template operations.  That has been one the fields
> that I've been someone peeved about for some time.  What if I have a
> fairly large site that needs done pretty quickly, but most of the pages
> are similar, and server side scripting isn't an option.

My employer, a ISP/web development shop, has a custom version of
HTML::DynamicTemplate that fits your bill. I'm not sure if our version is
open-source, but the module it's based on is. With it, you can do
something like this:

<HTML>
<BODY>
Hello, $user!<BR>
It looks like the time is $time on this fine $day.<BR>
Would you like to buy a $thingie?<BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>

(Note my awful HTML skills. I assure you, I'm much better at LaTeX ;)

Pass DynamicTemplate a reference to a hash (or something like that..) that
has appropriate values for $user, $time, $day and $thingie, and it will
tokenize & substitute the vars into the template. Works great. I've used
it for not only HTML, but also auto-generated emails, LaTeX documents,
etc., etc.

> Anyway, getting back to the topic of mail servers.  The problem with
> flat files is that they can be a pain.

And databases aren't? How many nights have _you_ spent isamchking tables
and manually fixing a database because somebody did a "UPDATE" without a
"WHERE" clause, and reverting to backup is not an option?

The difference between databases and flatfiles is that with a database,
generally when they break, the whole thing breaks. Mail is especially bad
for this, as it's the first thing users notice. We could drop all of our
outbound DS3s, randomly kill httpds, power down RADIUS servers, but if
people can't get their mail, _that_'s when the phones really start to ring
:/.

 > Now, if the server ran reiserfs, we could just place each and
every
> email as a text file.

Maildir format does this as well.

>
> Even if a single table sql database isn't the most appropriate, it is so
> stinking easy to implement.

You've got me there. I think that's why people use it; It effectively
combines RPC with NFS. I just don't think that's a good enough reason.

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
airboss at nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org