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Re: MS vs. pop and imap (alternate response)

2004-05-30 13:43:06

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


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