ietf-nntp OVER and HDR parameter comments

[Ken Murchison]

My general observation of the current OVER text and the HDR parameter
proposal is that implemention is driving the protocol.  For instance,
the OVER text describes the command as outputing the contents of the
overview database.  Clearly some implementations may be using a
database, but others may not.  Cyrus for example uses a separate cache
file for each mailbox/newsgroup.

I'm not a big fan of implementation finding its way into protocols.  I'd
like to see the current text sanitized so that the concept of a database
doesn't creep in.  Something like "The OVER extension provides access to
article overview information.  The overview information consists of a
[fixed?] set of parsed message headers and article meta-data."

Similarly, its seems as if the HDR parameter proposal is a way of
linking HDR back to the OVER implementation (or some other
implementation decision).  I don't think that HDR shouln't be restricted
to a subset of headers in any way.  The server has the article, so parse
it and find the header.  Whether the particular header is cached in some
way shouldn't be an issue.  If the client really wants/needs a header,
its going to get it by grabbing the HEAD and then parsing it itself. 
This can be very expensive, both in roundtrips and bandwidth, if the
client does this for a range of articles (HDR is one roundtrip and far
less data).

My $.02

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
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