MBOX-Line: From MRC at Washington.EDU  Fri May  9 15:14:55 2008
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Washington.EDU>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:41 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] Optimistic incremental THREAD=REFERENCES
In-Reply-To: <E146A798-5E98-4ADB-9B6E-C03D99F50A2E@iki.fi>
References: <1210364641.9518.397.camel@hurina>
	<C4+/sgL3fH13VZgTRBl1nA.md5@lochnagar.oryx.com>
	<E146A798-5E98-4ADB-9B6E-C03D99F50A2E@iki.fi>
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.1.10.0805091508000.2632@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washignton.EDU>

On Sat, 10 May 2008, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>> The subject-joining rule magnifies this. Personally I didn't imnplement the 
>> subject-joining bit.
> Me neither. That generates more complexity and I'd rather drop the subject 
> merging completely (my X-REFERENCES2 threading algorithm does that).

Hopefully this does not cause a flamewar.

I do not approve of the practice of an implementor deciding not to 
implement a portion of the specification, even if there seem to be good 
reasons to do so.

This leads us to a "do what we say, not what we do" situation when it 
comes to non-compliant or broken servers such as Exchange and Gmail.

"I didn't implement header searching.  It generates too much complexity."

"I didn't implement the delete-expunge model.  It generates too much 
complexity.  Setting \Deleted just moves to Trash."

"I don't care that I transmit bad syntax in BODYSTRUCTURE.  Outlook 
doesn't use it, so it doesn't matter."

Now, with that said, I do not object to the creation and publications of a 
new threading algorithm that is identical to REFERENCES but omits the 
subject consolidation step.  I would probably implement it, especially if 
it really is identical modulo that step.

Nor would I weep if REFERENCES2 (or whatever) ends up being the one that 
everybody uses and REFERENCES passes into obscurity.

All I ask is that if you implement REFERENCES, implement it according to 
the specification.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

