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From: kyle@uunet.UU.NET (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Idempotence of S3
Message-ID: <129678@uunet.UU.NET>
Date: 20 Apr 91 19:50:09 GMT
References: <1991Apr12.213421.22457@decuac.dec.com> <1991Apr16.065813.24921@pa.dec.com> <1991Apr16.165044.21308@csl.dl.nec.com>
Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA
Lines: 17

ylee@csl.dl.nec.com (Ying-Da Lee) writes:
 > I suspect the practice of spurious invocation of S3 near the top
 > of S0 started out as a mistake and, once it was in, it stays in
 > because of the peculiar mystique of sendmail.cf.  The idempotence
 > requirement, if it exists, seems more likely a rationalization for
 > such practice after the fact.
 > 
 > Why don't the basic principles of good programming
 > apply in sendmail.cf?  It IS programming, isn't it?

You answered your own question.  For most people it's not
programming at all--- more likely it's taking an existing
configuration, no matter how rotten that config file might be,
and tweaking it until things start working.  This explains why
there are some many convoluted sendmail.cf files out there.  Lots
can be simplified, but not without considerable work.  Most
people would rather be doing just about anything else.