[antispam-f] Re: / in rules
- From: Jeremy C B Nicoll <Jeremy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: antispam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:00:07 +0000 (GMT)
In article <63b810954e.ricp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Richard Porter <ricp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 13 Dec 2006 Jeremy C B Nicoll wrote:
> > It exists so that you can comment unobvious rules, eg:
> >
> > Auntie Jean's mails // ACCEPT From: = *nothingobvious@xxxxxxxx*
> I've never found a need to do that. If necessary I put a comment on
> the preceeding line.
There are two reasons for wanting comments to be on the same line:
a) if (in my version) an entire rule line got logged, the comment
would be there too
b) rules which arrive in the rules file via the ReadVariable feature
arrive with their generated content and a matching generated
comment. I suppose I could have generated each rule and comment
into a pair of system variables and ReadVariable-d both of them,
but why use two vars when one will do?
> It's more common, at least in programming, to have the comment after
> the statement.
But in this case the criterion value can vary widely in its length in a
set of similar rules whereas the "DELETE Subject: =" part in a set of
similar rules is generally of identical or very similar lengths. So it
makes more sense to have the optional comment "coloumn" at the start of
the line.
It also seemed to me that - especially for non-technical users - more
intuitive to put an explanation in front of a rule. You'd see
something explaining what the rest of the line did before deciding if
you wanted to read the rest of the line. Having to read past the rule
to find a trailing comment isn't so easy.
--
Jeremy C B Nicoll, Edinburgh, Scotland - my opinions are my own.
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