[NNTP] LIST EXTENSIONS (again)

[Jeffrey M. Vinocur]

On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:33 AM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

> Jeffrey M. Vinocur said:
>>> Right. Except that it would be "_NNTP_ 2 3".
>> Is everyone in agreement that we need the special underscores here?  
>> It
>> strikes me as a strange and unnecessary distinction, or perhaps I just
>> haven't thought about it hard enough.
>
> The reason for the underscores is precisely because it *isn't* an
> extension. We agreed a namespace for extension labels (alphanumeric 
> plus
> dot and dash), and that namespace ought to be used only for that 
> purpose.
> However we do it, lines in the LIST EXTENSIONS output that are not 
> related
> to real live extensions ought not to use that namespace.

I thought about this a lot this morning, walking in during the cold 
dark hours before dawn, and came to the conclusion that I disagree with 
the above, that I have a lot of trouble drawing a meaningful 
distinction between core capabilities (not all of which will 
necessarily be available) and extensions (some of which will likely be 
nigh universal), and that there's no reason they shouldn't all be 
listed together.

And then I come home, and I find out that Russ has beaten me to the 
punch.  Suffice it to say that I'm all behind the CAPABILITY/LIST 
CAPABILITIES proposal, whatever it's called.


-- 
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
jeff at litech.org