Russ Allbery <rra(_at_)stanford(_dot_)edu>
Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt(_at_)gulbrandsen(_dot_)priv(_dot_)no> writes:
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.
I think you need to find a better example. NNTP has both article numbers
and unique identifiers.
You mean message-id? Good point. I'd forgotten that on usenet, those are
dependably unique.
Search.
(And on a well-run server, article numbers
*don't* ever change.)
Speaking as (former) NNTP client author: Servers aren't always well-run,
users don't always direct their complaints in the right direction, and I
really, really, really hate complaints for a problem I can't either solve
or mitigate.
--Arnt