[Zope3-dev] Re: [Zope3-checkins] CVS: Zope3/lib/python/Zope/App/OFS/Services/SmtpService/Views - __init__.py:1.1 configure.zcml:1.1

[Martijn Faassen]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > > >     SR> I really, really think an SMTP server is important, if Zope
> > > >     SR> wants to grow 10x...also think of Mailman 3... We need to
> > > >     SR> get away of just thinking about HTTP and friends...
> 
> > Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > > Um, what would you do with an SMTP server integrated in Zope?  Does
> > > Zope really have to become a Polish army knife?
> 
> [Martijn F]
> > It would be nice to be able to send email to objects in some applications
> > though. (object publishing to email) 
> > 
> > Of course there's a bloat risk, but Zope 2 is already a multiple protocol
> > server (http, XML-RPC, Web DAV, FTP), and that's proven very useful.
> 
> Hm.  I really don't think that using email as a way for *programs* to
> communicate is a good idea -- the protocol is too braindead.

Sure, I wasn't suggesting that.

> And for
> *people* to talk to an object, a web browser seems to be a better
> solution than typing commands in an email message.  Email is for
> human-to-human communication or occasionally for program-to-human
> communication; it's no good for human-to-program communication.

Well, it's quite common for people to send mail to software. Happens
in MailMan. Roundup does it a lot. It wouldn't be an entire application
by itself, but it could definitely be part of an application.

> Do you really want to create e.g. a mailing list manager that accepts
> commands via email, like mailman or listserv, using Zope?  And if you
> do, does it really make sense to have the SMTP server integrated in
> the Zope server, rather than having the mail piped into a little
> helper program that parses the mail looking for commands and then
> makes some calls to Zope (e.g. using XMLRPC)?

Integration makes sense as then you can depend on it. That said, I'd
rather put multi protocol support in some seperate system that focuses
on that (like Twisted) instead of redoing it with Zope.

Regards,

Martijn