i think i've got an idea for a project...

[inkedmn]

this is going to be a pretty extensive little endeavor, but i think it's very doable. i'm hoping to make this a collabrative (sp?) effort, so whoever's into it, please let me know...

it's two fold actually... :)

1. A command line email client capable of sending, receiveing, reading, deleting, etc.

2. A command line address book (used in conjunction with the mail client), keeping track of names, addresses, email, etc. i'd like to use mysql, but if anybody else has a preference, i'm all ears...

so, who'd like to tackle this with me?

oh, btw, i'd like to do this in python (if i didn't say this, somebody would assume otherwise :))

[file13]

it would probably be pretty easy due to the presence of the libs. would you be using curses for formatting? it would make it nifty but kill portability....

[inkedmn]

heh, exactly...

i know anything about programming curses, but i think that any machine running python should be able to run it (since curses ships with python I THINK)

[Strike]

Yeah, curses ships with Python. I'd be up to helping do this, if you want.

[file13]

it says on the module docs

http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-curses.html

that it's avaliable for DOS, but it's not part of the standard install:


C:\>python
Python 2.2 (#28, Dec 21 2001, 12:21:22) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import curses
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
ImportError: No module named curses
>>>


not that we really need to help out the window$ folks, but it's always a nice touch. has anyone got curses working under DOS?

[inkedmn]

Originally posted by Strike
Yeah, curses ships with Python. I'd be up to helping do this, if you want.

that'd be great, i'd be stoked to have you involved :)

[kmj]

If you plan on using curses, you may find this link helpful:

http://py-howto.sourceforge.net/curses/curses.html

Also, if you happen to know where the windows version of curses is available, it'd be cool if someone could post it.

[inkedmn]

i was just thinking about keeping it simple, you know? we could eventually do the whole thing GUI if everybody's into it, but i figured for now we could just worry about getting the actual backend code right and get to the interface later...

[inkedmn]

<bump>

so it's going to be strike and myself on this?

anybody else care to fart about with python a bit? :)

[Strike]

First task: establish a list of "use cases" (yay UML)
Second task: brainstorm some architecture ideas (assuming we'll be using OOP, establish a class hierarchy)

[Strike]

hmm ... not having too much luck with python-curses:

[ddipaolo@quinn ..nkedmn/mua/test]% python curses.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "curses.py", line 3, in ?
import curses
File "curses.py", line 4, in ?
stdscr = curses.initscr()
AttributeError: 'curses' module has no attribute 'initscr'

Using code from
http://py-howto.sourceforge.net/curses/node4.html

[Bradmont]

Use jython and swing! :)

[inkedmn]

i got a cool UML tool (written in python :)) off of sourceforge. i think it'll help in plotting out some java stuff i'll be doing for work :)

[jemfinch]

Look at http://pythonms.sf.net/ for a Python command line email client.

Jeremy

[sachachua]

It's not done in Python, but Emacs will do everything you want and a whole lot more. =)

That said, have fun with Python!

[Strike]

Originally posted by sachachua
It's not done in Python, but Emacs will do everything you want and a whole lot more. =)

That said, have fun with Python!
Yes, but Python isn't evil.

[GnuVince]

>>> import os
>>> st = os.statvfs('/')
>>> st
(4096, 4096, 1682078L, 1104838L, 1019393L, 854784L, 744177L, 744177L, 0, 255)
>>> print os.statvfs.__doc__
statvfs(path) ->
(bsize, frsize, blocks, bfree, bavail, files, ffree, favail, flag, namemax)
Perform a statvfs system call on the given path.
>>>


I hope this helps with the disk usage question.

[Ninja40]

Originally posted by sachachua
It's not done in Python, but Emacs will do everything you want and a whole lot more. =)

That said, have fun with Python!

Not only emacs, but also Pine and another mail client that is supposed to be pretty powerful will do the job too.

A more original project would be a mail filter based on Bayesian statistics like the POPfile project (written in Perl). Bayesian filtering is a statistical technique on mail content that gives very effective results against spam (99% of recognition, and even 99.9% for the most advanced spam filter, CRM114) with extremely few false positive.

Discussion of Bayesian filtering here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/antispam.html
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454/stories/2002/09/16/spamDetection.html