Customer Reviews

The Procmail Companion (Practical Solutions Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been using procmail in a basic way for a number of years. Whilst I've always meant to get around to using some of the more complicated (and useful) tools in the procmail toolbox, I've always been discouraged by the man pages.

This book explained those areas wondefully, and also showed me quite a few possibilities that had never occurred to me.

I think this book would be useful even if you already know procmail pretty well.

It would have got 5 stars, except for a couple of typos (involving quotes) that should have been caught. Mostly excellent!

I've been using procmail to filter my email for probably six or seven years, but in spite of reading whatever info I could find online, I was never able to get beyond the basics--until I came upon McCarthy's book. The online info seemed either too simpleminded or (more often) too complex. McCarthy's book has helped me enormously to create more sophisticated filter recipes, to understand what I'm doing, and to identify errors in my coding. I think the book would be helpful both to people new to procmail and to those with lots of experience who are looking to fine-tune what they already know. It's a terrific book!

Unlike prior reviewers, all I could do was spell Unix when I purchased this book-- a desperation measure, to be sure. But trust me, folks, this little beauty is worth every penny and then some. Long story short: About a year ago, I implemented procmail on my website-hosted server. Since then, the email I care about is auto-filed into text files; spam is a past-tense item; and my email box is joyfully mine again. Tip: grab the freebie plain text editor, CrimsonEditor(.com), and activate color-coding so you can SEE what you're doing while fashioning filters. ..... This text is easy to digest, so you'll likely have filters up and testing within a weekend. (P.S. run google searches for "procmail recipes", as you can't "break" anything while trying!)

Of course this was the only book available on the topic.
Fortunately this book is written very well, and is a very easy read. ( I finished this book cover to cover in 3 days )
That is not to say that the topic is not covered in depth.
I am an experienced UNIX programmer and would not have minded if the explanations on regular expressions and other UNIXy stuff shorter.
Its really amazing what procmail can do for us to make the life easier.
Its particularly relevant today, as more and more people are turning to Linux for their desktop.