
IMAP, YouMAP, WeMAP: Mail Protocol's Proponents Argue for Better Support - terpua
http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/10/imap
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simpleenigma
At the moment I am currently writing an IMAP server in Erlang (google Erlang
IMAP and you'll find me pretty fast) and the IMAP protocol is crazy
complicated.

Although after you get far enough into the syntax you start to see why the
protocol is as complicated as it is. The protocol itself is written as a
series of design patterns so each command had a predictable request pattern
and a response pattern. After you get past the initial parsing of the command
and response strings the protocol become much easier IF you think of them as a
series of patterns.

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kmt
People who work on email systems say IMAP is one messy protocol to deal with.
Still, arguably, gives you better features than anything else. Email needs
improvement, but it's not an easy task. I am also surprised to see Google
implement it after all. I expected that the world would move on to something
better eventually. I don't expect this to happen fast though. Migrating email
systems is a slow process that regular people and system administrators find
painful.

