On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Bruce Lilly wrote:
1. there exists precedent for transport limits being introduced
into the message format, so in principle that should apply
to a msg-id length limit.
I think that we have loud agreement here. A message-id length limit is a
reasonable thing to go into a Messaging Implementation Recommendations
document. It should not be used to justify news having its own message
format.
This business about spaces not being optional after the colon is silly, as
are similar such "differences". Yes, almost all messages have LWSP after
the colon. But a programming mistake, particularly in some version of rn
or equivalent dinoware, is even less of a justification for a separate
message format than a length limit.
Nonetheless, even silly things like this may go into an implementation
recommendations document anyway. It's alright to document that a widely
used application has a baby programmer mistake which is triggered by
such-and-such, so don't do such-and-such.
2. It would be more convenient, IMO, to have a uniform limit
for SMTP Path (a.k.a. angle-addr) and for msg-id rather than
two close but different limits.
SMTP addresses and message-ids may use a more or less equivalent syntax,
but I think that it's stretching it to say that they are the same. That
type of logical stretch is the sort of argument that tends to be punished
severely by the law of unintended consequences.
Your argument is stronger without this unnecessary addition.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.