[NNTP] LISTGROUP

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Mark Crispin said:
>>> The benefit is compliance with standard Internet protocol architecture.
>> Meaning what? Just where is this "standard Internet protocol architecture"
>> documented?
> It is not MY job to do YOUR research for you.

On the contrary, *you* made the assertion so it is up to *you* to provide
the evidence. I believe that there is no such "standard architecture"; I
explicitly note that Appendix E of RFC 821 is nothing of the sort.

>> "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." [Emerson]
> I'm afraid that you are the one who is being small-minded.  Time and time 
> again, your response to any criticism is "will not change" or to put your 
> fingers in your ears and scream "I'M NOT LISTENING!"

I have made plenty of changes in response to criticism, the last less than
5 minutes ago.

However, I am *not* going to put in gratuitous incompatibilities with
existing practice contrary to our charter without the full agreement of the
working group including its Chair. Something that I don't think you have
the slightest chance of getting.

>> Just what benefit does compliance with this "standard" produce? Client code
>> still needs to understand specific codes or simply say "it begins 4 or 5,
>> it failed, tough luck".
> Client response to a 4xx is different than to a 5xx;

In what way?

> or rather it is in 
> protocols that comply with the standard theory of response codes.

"standard theory" or "standard architecture"?

>> This is *not* the same as mail where retrying later
>> can produce different results.
> Why?  Have you rigorously considered all instances in which mail returns a 
> 4xx code and determined that these can never apply to NNTP?

The only circumstances in NNTP where a retry *without other client action*
is likely to succeed is the 436 response code.

>>> That does not answer the objection.  The values (not "arguments" -- yet
>>> another thing that needs fixes)
>> Wrong: they are "arguments"; it says so in 3.2.
> The text in 3.2 is not a definition; it's just more of the same misuse of 
> the word "argument".

They are arguments of the response and it's a valid use of the term.

[LISTGROUP v GROUP]

I disagree with your view and note that nobody else seems to agree with
you. Therefore I see no reason to change my current text (which, for
reference, is *not* draft 25).

> This reminds me of something else.  The entire document uses two different 
> words, "group" and "newsgroup".  Although the author may have intended 
> these terms to be interchangable, that isn't the effect.  The document 
> clearly identifies "group" and "newsgroup" as being separate concepts, and 
> thus there must be a difference.

That is mostly a valid criticism. The document does *not* clearly identify
them as being separate concepts, and those familiar with the topic will
know that they are not. However, I have added a note to make it clear that
the terms are interchangeable and, in a few cases, used the longer term
where the shorter was present. I do not, however, believe that it is
worthwhile changing every single use.

The one other use of "group" - a set of commands identified by a single
capability label - has been replaced by "bundle".

Oh, there are two uses of "working group" in the acknowledgements; I see no
reason why any sane person should be confused by this.

> True life example: IMAP once defined a range as "all values between the 
> two given values inclusive."  That was not enough; someone insisted that 
> this only applied to ascending ranges, and that "all" does not apply to 
> descending ranges.
[...]

There is a proverb about arguing with pigs. I'm beginning to think it's
appropriate.

> A server manager, having a need to reset article numbers (perhaps after a 
> catastrophic failure), will see the three zeros response as being the 
> means to indicate that, no matter what you say.

But as soon as an article arrives subsequently that information is lost.
Dealing with these issues is one of the reasons we chose not to go that
way.

Note that a newsgroup seeing an arrival rate of 10 articles per second will
take over 13 years to exhaust the article number range. That makes this
a non-issue.

> You always fall back on the same set of arguments.  On the one hand, you 
> use "it would clutter up the protocol" to shoot down a remedy for a 
> problem;

"Mark Crispin thinks this should be changed" is not the same as "there is a
problem". Where a problem has been identified *and agreed* by the group, I
have been ready to modify the document and/or protocol appropriately, even
when the decision opposed my own view.

> on the other, you defend the maintenance of clutter on the ground 
> that old servers (which aren't going to advertise NNTPv2) had the clutter.

To do otherwise breaks our charter.

> If you choose to abuse your position as document editor to stymie any 
> revision to the status quo, this entire working group is pointless and the 
> document is a failure.

Kindly withdraw that remark immediately.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:    +44 870 051 9937
Demon Internet      | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Thus plc            |                            |