Re: BBDB or BADB (born again database)

[joakim]

"Roland Winkler" <address@hidden> writes:

> I thought I can post this here.
>
> Is this BBDB or BADB (the born-again database)? I don't know!
>
> BBDB had been dormant for quite some time. Actually, I never used it.
> When I looked at it, the code appeared rather rusted to me,
> a software package that had grown organically over many years
> (many years ago), making it difficult to make new changes to it. Yet at
> some point I thought I needed something of that kind to keep track of
> names, phone numbers, email and snail mail addresses and what else.

On a sidenote, did you look at addressbook.el ?
It is work in progress, but the interesting thing is that the author is
positive about inclusion in emacs, and that it uses standard vcards for
contact information.



> When I tried to get BBDB working for me, I ended up doing much more
> changes than I had ever expected. 
>
> - I didn't try to keep any backward compatibility (beyond the latest
>   GNU Emacs released a few days ago), nor did I try to keep the code
>   compatible with Xemacs (which I don't know / don't use). (Yet I
>   could even imagine that it is not so difficult to port the new code.)
>
> - I gave up to write a ChangeLog, changes were too numerous.
>
> - I tried to give variables and functions more consistent names. If
>   you have any old customizations of BBDB, most likely they will not
>   work with the code below! (Yet maybe you want to agree with me
>   that it might have become easier to add new ones.)
>
> - Also, I tried to give functions and commands more consistent
>   calling sequences.
>
> - Many changes of variable and function names were done on all files
>   simultaneously with tags-query-replace. In that sense the different
>   files below should be consistent. Yet I've mostly looked into the base
>   files bbdb.el and bbdb-com.el. I didn't look much into various
>   speciality files of BBDB. (And I don't know I ever will. For some of
>   them the concepts they tried to implement appear outdated to me and I
>   do not have time for such things.). So don't be surprised if lots of
>   things do not work!
>
> - The code below comes with a user interface which to me appears
>   more compatible with other emacs packages I like to use. This
>   includes the usual menus and font-locking.
>
> - I changed the format of the database file (see bbdb-migrate.el),
>   yet forward migration should work as with older versions of BBDB.
>   (But there's no backward migration anymore. Who wants that???)
>
> - And beware: most likely there are lots of (new and old) bugs, too!
>
> - I didn't look much into the various interfaces with various MUAs.
>   (Beware: I do not know much about them. I am a fossil that still
>   uses VM, though I am dreaming of something more modern.)
>
> - I haven't tried to update the BBDB texinfo file nor do I know
>   whether I might ever find the time to do that.
>
> Other volunteers are welcome to do their part!
>
> Probably, there are many other issues I should mention here, too,
> that I keep forgetting. Oh well!
>
> Should I rename my code to BADB to avoid incompatibilities? I'll be
> happy to do that!
>
> Comments / feedback of any kind welcome!
>
> r.
>
> PS: How to use these files? Compile them with make, and put them
> into your emacs loadpath. Then the command bbdb is kind of a generic
> starting point. The menus show you many commands that you can use.
>
>
>
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-- 
Joakim Verona