sendmail shock. Bibliography?

[Mike Pelletier]

In article <BARNETT.91Apr3153827 at grymoire.crd.ge.com> barnett at crdgw1.ge.com writes:
>In article <1991Apr2.180215.1356 at sci34hub.sci.com> gary at sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
>>   Forget it. Unless you grew up with sendmail, you'll probably never
>>   figure it out. 
>
>>   Get smail3 off uunet, and convert to that. Understandable, works well,
>>   and has readable config files.
>
>Or you can get Ease 3.1 - which is a higher level language for
>sendmail files. Ease does not replace sendmail. You convert
>sendmail.cf files into Ease, edit them (with real variable names,
>keywords, preprocessor support, etc.) Then convert them back into
>sendmail.
>
>Instead of 
>---
>R$*<@$*$=m>$*		$1<@$2LOCAL>$4			convert local domain
>R$-!$+			$@$>6$2<@$1.uucp>		uucphost!user
>---
>You see
>---
>	if ( zero_or_more <@ zero_or_more  any_in_mydomainname > zero_or_more )	/* convert local domain */
>		retry ($1<@$2"LOCAL">$4);
>	if ( exactly_one ! one_or_more )	/* uucphost!user */
>		return (RULESET_6 ($2<@$1."uucp">));
>---
>So you see, you can't knock sendmail anymore because of the syntax,
>you have to pick a better reason. :-)

This just points out that sendmail files are easy to read once you pick
up the vocabulary:

 	R   <=> if( ... )
	$*  <=> zero or more
	$=x <=> any in <class x>
	$-  <=> exactly_one
	$+  <=> one_or_more
	$@  <=> return( ... )
	$>x <=> "to ruleset x" in return

This "ease" thing is just a more verbose way of writing sendmail.cf files,
with perhaps a more amenable learning curve.  You're saying precisely the
same things in an english derivative, but I think that the main problem that
people have with sendmail.cf files is not how you say it, but rather what
you say.  And the "ease" system doesn't address that at all.  It just makes
sendmail configuration less like writing line noise.

--
Mike Pelletier                     |
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