Re: nntp-extensions Re: ietf-nntp NNTP SEARCH extension internet-draft available

[Chris Newman <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996, Brian Hernacki wrote:
> While I like the idea of a single message access protocol, news and mail
> still seem different enough to me that I cannot envision using IMAP in
> it's current state as *the* reader protocol.
> 
> I have probably spouted this before, but I think the best course of
> action is to let IMAP and NNTP develop seperately and simple let the
> best protocol emerge.

I happen to believe IMAP should become the one true message access
protocol.  NNTP has too many intrisic design flaws that make it less
suitable as an interactive reader protocol.  For example, there is no way 
for NNTP to have multiple commands in progress at one time because it's a
lock-step protocol.  NNTP has no way to notify the client of new messages
in the current group without the client actively reselecting the folder.
These flaws can't be fixed without effectively designing a new protocol.

That said, I'm a realist and there are three facts which are holding
back use of IMAP for news:

1) There is a large installed base of mature NNTP message access clients.

2) Most of the current crop of IMAP clients perform poorly on large lists 
of folders (although they're all capable of reading news through IMAP).

3) IMAP is missing a couple minor features that newsreaders have come to
expect.

Because of this, and especially because of #1, I don't think it's
productive to try to stop further development on NNTP's reading 
capabilities as long as people actively want to pursue it (although I
hold my own opinions about whether those people are making wise use of
their time). However, if you go and develop protocol for an IMAP function
in NNTP, the syntax should be as similar as possible.  There is no
technical justification to create incompatible mechanisms.

So if you want to add searching, steal IMAP's SEARCH command, and if
anything is missing, add the new functionality in such a way that it can
be put in IMAP as well.  If you want to do real authentication, copy
IMAP's mechanism (SASL).  If you want to do fetching of MIME parts or
individual headers, copy IMAP's syntax as much as possible.