Well, I think what makes IMAP really interesing is its extended session. Consider the IDLE command, this is really making use of an active connection to send new events. This is quite powerful and used to good effect as a means to immediately notify users of incoming mail.
POP simply can't do this, but IMAP can. Now imagine there is a class of data out there whose perceived value diminishes as a function of time, say stock prices. I could very easily imagine an IMAP bridge that gathers stock prices, and a client that's interested in stock prices. This *could* be implemented today, but the cost is quite high, for if the IMAP server sent *new* stock price messages every 15 minutes for a basket of ticker symbols, the client cache quickly becomes unreasonable. BUT, if each ticker symbol, by virtue of being unique in their space, had a similar mapping in the IMAP server's space, then the IMAP server could send UPDATEs for the latest stock prices. You can imagine a window in MS Outlook, possibly on their summary page, that provides the real time stock data to the user. That's off the top of my head, anyway. I imaging this would also have huge impact for workflow systems, or any sort of project management where distribution lists and 'active' data are valuable. JM -----Original Message----- From: Abhijit Menon-Sen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:38 AM To: John Milan Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Why is a message immutable? At 2003-03-19 07:32:25 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Newer clients will be able to make use of an update capability. To what end? -- ams
