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Re: RFC 2047 and gatewaying

2002-12-27 13:10:38

Kai Henningsen writes:
Well, I would not so much disbelieve that this is done, as much as that doing this is particuölarly sane. Reading the IMAP RFC makes for an interesting experience, but I wouldn't call it particularly pleasant.

IMAP has some useful features, yes, but the protocol that implements them
is more than baroque.

Could you elaborate that opinion?

I've implemented both (NNTP as both client and server) and my experience is that IMAP is about as good as it reasonably could be. The task of managing e-mail is complex, and old protocols and APIs have warts - that's just how it is.

NNTP was really simple to understand and implement, but that simplicity is bought at the expense of completeness. For example, IMAP has UIDVALIDITY while NNTP has a pretense that article numbers never change.

--Arnt

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