Re: PATCH: Several enhancements to mailbox checking

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Thu, 12 July 08:59 Dmitri Pogosyan wrote:

> Why not? I'm often using my office IMAP server over slow connections
> when traveling. You know, from a hotel it is often 28.8 kbs. 
> IMAP does not generate much traffic (with reasonable client, of course).
> Just headers of new messages. Isn't it the point of IMAP ?

I think the statement "with reasonable client" is the key here.
The idea of havig a remote mailbox repository which can be managed
anywhere on the internet is very appealing.  My own experience of IMAP
on a slow connection is that everything is so sluggish as to be unusable.
I get the impression that clients are perhaps trying to be too clever
or don't implement the stuff needed for efficiency like socket buffering
and pipelining - both of which make a big difference on the wide area
because they eliminate round trip time, buffering at the tcp level and
pipelining at the protocol level.

I'm not sure whether Balsa fits the "reasonable client" definition.
I gave up trying to use IMAP on the wide area ages ago.

Brian Stafford