Just another of my hare-brained musings arising out of perusing various
IMAP extension drafts.
It seems to me that there could be a value in allowing a server to
indicate to a client that the way it has chosen to go about requesting a
particular action is "expensive" - that is, that it relies on server
mechanisms that are costly in CPU or I/O terms.
Rationale: There are many message stores with many different
characteristics; furthermore, IMAP allows many ways of achieving a
desired result and in some implementations, one method may be more
complex or system-intensive than another. As an example, my
message store does not include the "References" header as part of its
index, so implementing THREAD=REFERENCES is going to be
significantly slower and more costly in memory terms than other sorting
methods.
Suggestion: Define a standard [EXPENSIVE] response code that a
server can return to any command that it deems costly. The idea is to
allow the client the option to choose a different method for achieving
what it wants to do, or perhaps to offer an explanation to the user for
any delay that might occur.
Cheers!
-- David --
------------------ David Harris -+- Pegasus Mail ----------------------
Box 5451, Dunedin, New Zealand | e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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