[NNTP] Revisiting POST as a separate capability

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Tue Mar 29 05:00:09 PST 2005


Jeffrey M. Vinocur said:
>> True. But when the syntax can help you, why not let it?
> I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like the resulting 
> asymmetry.  There are many reasonable real-world cases where this 
> technique won't work,

I think we just have a difference of philosophy; I'm not sure it's worth
debating that bit any further.

> Also, the issue with LISTGROUP stems from the fact that we're defining 
> all sorts of extensions with the main document; if we were adding it at 
> a later date, I don't believe we'd be trying to find a way to add a new 
> argument to an existing capability (unless this possibility is clearly 
> defined a priori, as for the list of SASL mechanisms).

Disagree. Suppose LISTGROUP were a separate capability and, at a later
date, someone wrote an extension to allow ranges. Wouldn't they expect to
advertise it as an argument to the LISTGROUP capability?

Which reminds me: Russ, there was a suggestion to make LISTGROUP mandatory.
What happened to it?

>>> Similarly, it won't work if the subsidiary capability
>>> depends on having any of several alternatives available (no obvious
>>> example comes to mind, but I hope the idea is clear).
>> See first comment.
> I don't see how the first comment applied here.

Just because the syntax can't always help you doesn't mean you should
prevent it when the opportunity *is* there.

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