MBOX-Line: From imantc at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 08:40:26 2015
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Imants Cekusins <imantc@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:53 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] If Crispin were creating IMAP today how would
 it be different?
In-Reply-To: <54FB22EB.7090707@lavabitllc.com>
References: <54FAEB94.4070508@lavabitllc.com>
	<CAKHUCzzirU0YEQ02n1zEypZCvUJ+0dU0CuPxT=ZnowTk_R6jOg@mail.gmail.com>
	<54FB22EB.7090707@lavabitllc.com>
Message-ID: <CAP1qinZgGpHLwmPQZ734id=avz98gBBcSdXYeL1uMxwnCF9vKw@mail.gmail.com>

Speaking of new protocols, implementations of new email protocols can
be made much easier for developers and faster for users if a switch
were made from text-based to binary formats.

With binary formats, parsing is greatly simplified. Case conversion
become unnecessary.

Specify expected data length as a number of bytes. CRLF, empty lines
lose any special meaning and become part of the text. No need for line
wrap or any text modification.

Commands and mime-types are exact binary sequence.

Encode all text as e.g. UTF-8 for transmission - here goes away back
and forth charset conversion.

Even if current command-response command sequence were kept - apart
from these simple changes, email servers would work faster and more
reliably.