Need email server aid

[Alvin Thompson]

On 04/23/2010 06:46 AM, Chuck Kuecker wrote:
> Remote control - one option. An embedded web server is another option -
> I might not need email if we go that way.
>
> This project is very much in development - we're writing specifications yet.

Email is probably the best way to go, because it already solves the 
problem of reliably transmitting messages over an unreliable medium 
(assuming all players are cooperative).  Otherwise you'll spend a lot of 
time 'reinventing the wheel' to get that reliability back.  First, with 
queuing of messages that can't be sent, then with persisting the queue 
if the device is powered off before the messages are sent, then with 
retrying sending messages if the server isn't available, then with 
backing off retries if the server is unavailable for an extended period, 
the list goes on and on.  Mail servers may not be the most glamorous 
software, or the new kid on the block, but mail servers do all of what 
you need out of the box, and have been honed over the last 20 years of use.

I've been with a lot of projects that thought that they too could come 
up with their own clever solution, and that solution sucked up more and 
more of their time and resources when they could have just plopped in a 
mail server and a mail library and be done with it.