MBOX-Line: From vladimir_butenko at stalker.com  Wed Apr 12 05:41:10 2006
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: "Vladimir A. Butenko" <vladimir_butenko@stalker.com>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:37 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] LIST Clarification
In-Reply-To: <dVr0JixdxnzBOideFFsQLA.md5@libertango.oryx.com>
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	<Pine.WNT.4.65.0604101441160.4904@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>
	<443C0286.60200@att.com>
	<Pine.WNT.4.65.0604111228310.3332@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>
	<syMWpRdWCviH+GmTLGxvWQ.md5@libertango.oryx.com>
	<Pine.WNT.4.65.0604111418130.3332@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>
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Message-ID: <web-35048142@mail.stalker.com>

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:29:26 +0200
  Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt@gulbrandsen.priv.no> wrote:
> Vladimir A. Butenko writes:
>> a LIST "Mark%"
>> * LIST "Mark Crispin"
>> a OK
>> b LIST "" "%CRISPIN"
>> * LIST "MARK CRISPIN"
>>
>> The later is a questionable practice, but it definitely has more 
>> merits than returning unmodified "Mark Crispin" as our server (and, I 
>> guess, yours) is doing now. The "Mark Crispin" string would confuse a 
>> client that does not expect that string to match the "%CRISPIN" 
>> pattern.
> 
> Do you know that for a fact? Which client(s)?

It would be really beneficial - *IMHO* - if when rejecting some "nonexistent 
Science such as computer science" one would not reject any basics of any 
science at all. The protocols are written not to explain "convenient ways to 
do this or that", but to SPECIFY the way of interaction between entities 
involved into certain activity. If someone thinks differently, then please 
ask Mr.Crispin to degrade the status of his document from "STANDARD" to 
"INFORMATIONAL" or "BCP". And I will have some much needed relaxation time 
reading his response to such a proposal.

The whole approach to the protocol problems based on "the fact that no 
client has any problem with this or that" is WRONG - as long as we are 
talking about the standards, and not articles in some tabloids (which 
include computer science text books :-).

If I'd write some client, then I would expect the SPECIFIED, and not 
REASONABLE (from someone's point of view) response from a server. If the 
server does not return what is expected - based on the SPECIFIED STANDARD, 
then that server is *broken*.

Nothing in the SPECIFIED standard says anything about "%CRISPIN" matching 
"Mark Crispin". The server retuning such a response is broken - by 
definition of the word "standard".

Is Mark's server broken? Yes.
Is our server broken? Yes.
Does Mark plan to fix it? I doubt it.
Do we plan to fix it? I doubt it.

The moral? If the law is violated by too many people, probably it's time to 
change the law. Till then - it's the violation of the law.

My point (and provocation, as usual) was not to point the finger onto some 
"broken implementations": almost all of the existing IMAP implementations 
are broken in this respect. It was an illustration of a need to revise a 
protocol - a long overdue task, which is, unfortunately, not a simple task.

Finally, the answer to your question ("Which clients?") - was the part of 
the original phrase: "a client that does not expect that string [Mark 
Crispin] to match the "%CRISPIN" pattern." Any client has a right not to 
expect it.

And I do NOT care if such a client really exists or not - as long as we use 
this list to talk about protocols, and not about "the simplest way to 
install the XXX server on the YYY OS with a hard drive polluted by my ZZZZ 
pet". That would be Computer Science...


> Arnt

Sincerely,
Vladimir

