On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Richard Bang wrote: >> What the formal grammar permits, a server should permit. >Surly this is not always the case. I'm sure I have seen examples on this >list where the response >has been "Although the formal syntax allows that its clearly silly". >Unfortunately what is silly to me is probably not so to someone else :)
The server should allow exactly what the standard allows. Acting silly is a privilege that clients have. Servers don't. ;-) Compliant silly behavior is not something the server should try to fix. In an ideal world, the server should stand and the client should try to be less silly. ;-) Of course, in reality, money and power make some people think otherwise. What you're bringing up here is one of the ancient discussions on wether a protocol is enforcing or simply serving as a guideline. The latter is a cause of great evil. Treating RFC2060/3501 as a guideline certainly allows certain developers to reach unreasonable deadlines within time, star-in-book and salary-up, dinner with the boss and so on. An enforcing protocol requires more reading, better programming and certainly a better understanding of why things are the way the are. And I claim that in 100% of the cases, an enforcing protocol requires more time to implement. The IMAP protocol is not a guidebook. :-) Andy :-) -- Andreas Aardal Hanssen http://www.bincimap.org/
