On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Terry Gray wrote:
> And then came SSL/TLS...

Right!  Which is all the more reason not to continuously make new
connections, and instead to keep the connections that you have.  The cost
paid by SSL/TLS in session startup swamps the modest cost of having an
ongoing active TCB.

Since a client can't assume that STATUS is lightweight -- and in fact the
IMAP specification explicitly permits STATUS to be non-lightweight -- it
is also a bad idea to do ongoing polling with a STATUS command.

Therefore, by elimination, a client which wishes to monitor some modest
number of mailboxes is best off doing so via static IMAP sessions in IDLE
or NOOP polling state.

The best solution for monitoring multiple mailboxes is by some sort of
MDA-triggered notification and not by polling via IMAP at all.

-- Mark --

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

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