On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu> wrote: > > On Wed, August 13, 2014 12:45 pm, Kirk Bocek wrote: >> >> On 8/13/2014 10:35 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote: >>> Sendmail exists forever. ... I was extremely happy to switch away from >>> sendmail to postfix (and postfix configuration files are human >>> readable!). >> >> Sendmail's heritage reaches back to when computer's were the size of >> dishwashers and had 4k of main memory. Hence the inscrutable syntax. >> > > Of course, I used exaggeration (we all had "configure sendmail" chapter in > our sysadmin exam back then). After you compile human readable sendmail > config file into what sendmail uses, you get something similar to assembly > code as opposed to high level programming language. And some of us were > able to digest that too (as sometimes you inherit this file, but not the > configuration source file)... Ahh, the days of wooden computers and iron programmers. Back then, compilers were a rare, extra-cost item that you probably wouldn't have on your mail server and an embedded macro language was an efficient way to control it. Still works, but once the macro has been written, all you have to do is copy it and the m4 processor provides a way to make customized copies. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com