ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: New I-D Transfer Encoding for MIME

1998-09-09 23:56:34

On Wed, 09 Sep 1998 22:41:29 -0500 Steve Dorner 
<sdorner(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com> wrote:

I don't find a lot to like in either proposal.

Compression:
... 
- Even when you can get compression (such as with text), I'm unconvinced it 
buys you much.  There's so much low-layer compression going on.  I would 
like to see numbers indicating a solid benefit from application layer 
compression in email, a benefit worth the deployment penalty.

And, of course, if there really is anything significant to be 
gained, there is a case to be made for doing the compression at 
the real transport level, rather than as a MIME C-T-E.  One 
could even imagine a transport level compression procedure 
sending binary stream compressed stuff, thereby avoiding 
sacrificing some of the efficiency gained from compression to 
the need to send ASCII.  E.g., one might have something like...

 client: EHLO my.dom.ain
 server: 250-BDAT-LZmm
 s:      250 EXPN
  [...]
 client: BDAT LZmm NNN
 s: 354 expecting NNN octets
 c: [...data...]
 s: 250 Received ok

Now, like Steve, I'm not completely convinced any of this is 
worth it.  But, if one is going to do it, then it may be worth 
the slight extra trouble (and perhaps easier deployment) to do 
it at transport and get all of the gains possible.

    john