From Ned Freed: ietf-nntp Comments on the November draft

[Taz Higgins]

In article <382D1FCB.3E049AD9 at verio.net>, Stan O. Barber wrote:
> > Can we add something about streaming/pipelining here ? In other words,
> > though the protocol requires the client to send commands and the server to
> > respond, the client should be able to send further commands without having
> > to wait for the server to respond to the previous command (providing, of
> > course, that it gets the overall protocol correct). This may seem obvious,
> > but see RFC 1854 for why it isn't.
> 
> I have no problem and in fact am in favor of imposing such a requirement, as
> long as the installed base of NNTP servers actually supports pipelining at
> present. The reason RFC 1854 exists is that a significant fraction of SMTP
> server software actually doesn't support pipelining, so it has to be done as an
> optional extension.
> 
> If the installed base doesn't support pipelining then an extension would
> probably be necessary to announce support.

Virtual Access (an NNTP client) uses pipelining all the time (it cannot be turned 
off).  The only news server that we have had problems reported with was one 
version of DNews - and I believe that this has now been corrected.  As far as I 
am aware, as a client author, almost all news servers support pipelining


-- 
Taz Higgins