On 5/30/04 at 2:48 PM -0400, Cyrus Daboo wrote:
--On Sunday, May 30, 2004 01:06:12 PM -0500 Pete Resnick
<presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com> wrote:
pc1 does not retain any messages. Repeated readings of the same
message require repeated retrievals from srv1.
This would make for an amazingly stupid POP client, a somewhat
stupid IMAP client, and a use of a local access client that would
piss-off some sys admins.
No! There is a well defined usage case for this: kiosk clients that
do not leave messages behind in a local cache. This is vital for any
public access email stations.
Even for kiosk clients, having temporary local storage (memory or
disk) for repeated readings of the same message during a single
session I would think is pretty common. I suppose there are
situations where you would not have enough local storage to even do
that, but I would stand by my claim that such a client wouldn't be
terribly intelligent: You don't want to have to re-parse the MIME
every time a user re-opens a message. Perhaps that's what's done in
some cases, but it doesn't seem like the best way to implement it.
In no case was I saying that kiosk mode was stupid.
There is a third option: messages kept on both server and client
with synchronisation.
Again, I would claim that architecturally, this is identical to the
other two: The message is delivered into the Message Store, at which
point the UA accesses and manipulates that store, either with a
protocol like POP or IMAP, or directly like /bin/mail. The details of
the manipulations, and the richness of the interactions, are all part
of the UA/MS interaction.
pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102