[NNTP] NNTP URI draft

[Charles Lindsey]

In <9SqKw-Qmw-B at khms.westfalen.de> kaih at khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) writes:

>chl at clerew.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey)  wrote on 14.03.05 in <IDC9u1.G8I at clerew.man.ac.uk>:

>> No, you can't do that, because it is not obligatory (for the news scheme
>> at least) to use NNTP (though that will be the case 99% of the time). For
>> example, when used with the local server, it might access the active file
>> (whatever) directly. Moreover, even with an NNTP connection, it might
>> choose to access the newsgroups file or the overview rather than the
>> active file.

>So? Say that if this is done via NNTP, this is how it's done; if it is  
>done some other way, the result is supposed to be the same.

Then you just specify what the overall result is supposed to be (which is
what my text does). It is not the job of a standard to tell implementors
how to do their job. Even less so when describing the behaviour of user
agents. And even less so again when making rules for URIs, which are
supposed to be meaningful in all kinds of agents with all kinds of user
interfaces (not just in browsers rendering HTML).

>> That is fine for those forms of the URI that return a single article. But
>> it is not so clear what is to happen to those forms that simply connect
>> you to the server and leave it to you what to do next. If it connects you
>> to a list of groups, is it then suppose to select one to read, or is it
>> supposed to invite you to select one to subscribe to, or will it depend
>> whether you are already subscribed?

>Well, that certainly *should* be specified. Otherwise, it's useless.

Why? That surely is a user interface issue which is intimately tied up
with whether the program displaying the URI is a web browser, a MUA or a
newsreader, together with whether or how it is connected to a newsreader.
You cannot assume that the program which shows the URI to you is itself
going to perform the NNTP lookup, or whether it is going to punt it to a
separate newsreader (which may or may not then start to worry whether or
not you are subscribed to the groups in question).


>No, the standard *SHOULD* specify that. A URI without specified semantics  
>is a very bad idea.

I think it you really want to pursue that line, which seems contrary to
the way URIs are supposed to work, then you had better take it to the
uri at w3.org list and put it to the URI experts.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl at clerew.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5