Adding a CouchDB backend

[Théodore Biadala]

> > With couchdb you can replicate very easily. Makes
> backup really simple. 
> Why?

I don't know if you heard about ubuntu-one, it's a kind
of contact/calendar/data synchronization based on couchdb for 
ubuntu. It sync data to your smartphone, laptop, other desktop or 
whatever runs couchdb. But it doesn't sync mail, wich make it 
pretty useless for me. But I like the idea.

To replicate a database with CouchDB you just need to give him
the URL of another Couch database and it takes care of everything
else. No cron, no filesystem rights and it's build to survive
power outages, bad connection, or any kind of crash while it's
running/replicating. 


> > And I want to use it as a mail reader too. Putting
> everything in 
> couch mean It's easier to use than maildir or IMAP
> for me.
> Interesting. Could you expose the reasons a bit more, please? I don't
> know CouchDB that much.

CouchDB is a NoSQL db with a REST api (i know, lots of buzzwords), it 
stores "documents" and emails are exactly the kind of data that 
can/should go into it. And because you have a REST interface you can
do whatever you want on the database and the data with only 
javascript (AJAX actually, to send PUT or DELETE HTTP requests) 
and HTML. I'm a web dev, I like this kind of things.

Only HTML+JS makes "couchapp" possible :
http://couchapp.org/page/what-is-couchapp
It's a bunch of html/javascript files served directly form couchdb
that make it possible to build blogs, twitter-like apps very 
easily and you can distribute your app by replicating it somewhere else. 
I'd like to have a mail reader where I can annotate mail, and 
organize them like I want to, not like my imap provider wants me too.

I could go on and on, that's the basics i guess. I got 8 years of mails 
and the easier my backup is, the happier I am.

--
Théodore Biadala