[NNTP] Snapshot 6

[Russ Allbery]

Ken Murchison <ken at oceana.com> writes:

> 3.2.2:

> Since LISTGROUP, OVER and HDR have become optional capabilities rather
> than extensions (which I'm fine with), I'd like to see some kind of
> uniformity with the way that optional reader commands are advertised. We
> have LISTGROUP, OVER and HDR advertised with their own capabilities, yet
> POST is an argument to READER.  Obviously OVER needs to be a separate
> capability because it has its own argument (unless we tweak syntax), but
> LISTGROUP and HDR could simply be additional arguments to READER.

> Similarly, if we change the IHAVE capability back to TRANSIT, then the
> STREAMING extension could simply be a STREAMING argument to TRANSIT rather
> than its own capability.

> However, for simplicity and consistency it probably makes more sense to
> just make POST its own capability.  Having said all that, I won't argue
> strenuously for any changes.

Hm, just making POST its own capability is very tempting, I agree.  I like
that better than doing what you describe in the first two paragraphs
above.  (My general feeling is that arguments to capabilities should be
used sparingly and avoided where possible.  Note that the total amount of
data returned by the server is exactly the same whether it's a separate
capability or an argument to another capability.  *grin*)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>