[NNTP] Status and issue resolutions

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Ade Lovett said:
>> At present, the *intended* differences are:
>> * LISTGROUP generates a multiline block after the initial 211 response
>>   (nobody was comfortable, way back when, with using a different  
>> number);
> 
> This is the bit I don't like.

I agree. But, as I said, nobody (else) was happy with changing the
response code.

> Essentially there are now five different ways for a client to "enter"  
> a newsgroup, getting different returned information:
> 
>     GROUP foo
>     GROUP            (whilst in foo)
>     LISTGROUP        (whilst in foo)
>     LISTGROUP foo
>     LISTGROUP foo low-high
> 
> This strikes me as conceptually wrong.

Agreed.

> To my mind, done "right", the  
> GROUP command would be marked as going-away, with LISTGROUP (perhaps  
> even LIST GROUP [<name> [<range>]],

<FX: cringe>

> though this would require  
> extending LIST a little bit more) taking over completely.

Meanwhile I'm thinking that extending GROUP would be a better way to go.

If I were starting from scratch, I would have something like:

    ENTERGROUP (group|".") [range]]

where:
    "."  means the current group
    specifying a range produces multi-line output (with a different code)

Then:
    GROUP                   =   ENTERGROUP .
    GROUP foo               =   ENTERGROUP foo
    LISTGROUP               =   ENTERGROUP . 1-          ) but with a
    LISTGROUP foo           =   ENTERGROUP foo 1-        ) different
    LISTGROUP foo 234-567   =   ENTERGROUP foo 234-567   ) response code

> There is also the issue now that a client needs to figure out whether  
> the "211" returned is now merely a single-line response (from GROUP),  
> or the start of a multi-line response (from LISTGROUP).  Such  
> overloading feels somewhat unclean.

Amen.

However, just to clear my worries, do you see any *unintended* differences
between the present two specifications?

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
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