ietf-nntp Re: nntp-extensions draft-ballou-nntpsrch-00.txt

[Brian Hernacki]

> Unless I misread things, I think it might also be worth while to mention
> that I find the profile mechanism (having the server remember preferences)
> somewhat awkward and too heavy-weight.  The obvious, simply having the
> nnrpd (or equivalent) process remember the profile, can cause operational
> problems if the server has to restart it for some reason or other.  The
> notion of session (with today's offline newsreaders, batching newsreaders,
> archaic versions of netscape which spawned nnrpd for every command ;-), and
> operational considerations etc) hasn't been clear for quite some time.

I don't think having the profile linked to a session (having nnrpd or
whatever remember it) would be a wise way to implement it.

> A more complex solution, having nnrpd place the profile in a file for
> later retrieval causes storage management issues not seen before.

This is what I imagined implementations would do. It's not really that
hard.

> I tend to not like the idea of the server having to retain any more
> client-specific state than "current group" and "current article number".

Personally, I like the idea of pushing more onto the server and making
the clients more lightweight. 

> Thus, I prefer a more stateless SEARCH mechanism.  As per syntax, reusing
> someone else's standard sounds like a good idea to me.

I don't mind reuse, I just only want to reuse the pieces that are
applicabel and usefull for news.


--brian