Re: bogofilter behavior

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004, matthias.andree@gmx.de wrote:

>> VERSION: spam ham spam-strong ham-strong
>> 0.11.0: -s -n -S -N
>>
>> Can you continue the table?
> 
> Not at this time, the meaning of spam-strong and ham-strong is unclear
> to me and doesn't stand out in the documentation.
> 
> -s/-n - REGISTER message as spam/ham (ham = non-spam)
> -S/-N - UNREGISTER message as spam/ham (undo a registration, must use the same
>       message)
> 
> These options can be combined, to fix up a false training, -Sn moves a
> message from spam to ham and -Ns moves it from ham to spam.

spam-strong and ham-strong means to unregister as the opposite before
registering as spam/ham, implying that it's been registered already.
At least this was the case before (or I was confused!).  I see that
now it will be -Sn and -Ns respectively for ham-strong and
spam-strong.

>>> I'd suggest refusing to work with bogofilter versions older than
>>> 0.10.2 and it's recommended to warn about versions older than 0.17.5
>>> which is now three months old. Remember that bogofilter 0.X versions
>>> are still under development.
>>
>> It's hard to give the boot to the users like that.
> 
> The users chose to use a development version, with all the implications
> such as a minor release becoming incompatible with the previous,
> anything but the current version unsupported, frequent updates and the
> like.

Sure, but if we *can* make it work, why be lazy?  It's such a small
thing compared to bothering the user and getting misguided bug
reports such as "spam.el doesn't work with bogofilter, I tested it!"

> 0.11.0, when the meaning of the registration options was changed for the
> last time, was released in March 2003 - over 17 months ago, which is an
> entire era for a software under development.
> 
> It's sensible to request frequent updates of users using a development
> version. Don't waste your time on the 0.1 % of machines that run
> outdated bogofilter versions - use the registration as mentioned above
> and refuse work with versions before and excluding 0.11.0.

I think this is wrong.  Not only does it put the burden on the user,
it also means that when bogofilter gets updated, spam.el needs to be
updated as well.  That's crazy!  I'll either support Bogofilter as
users expect it or not support it at all.

>> Gnus is in Emacs, and that means we have to handle old software too
>> occasionally.
> 
> It's not going to help anybody if someone uses some two-year-old version
> of bogofilter today.

Again, you're putting the burden on the user to upgrade.  Let's just
have a set of switches for versions before 0.11 and let the user
decide what they want to do.

If I get other votes for dropping automatic support for old bogofilter
versions I'll consider it, but I would really prefer not to.

Ted