IMAP's real problem was scale and timing
IMAP's real problem was scale and timing
Posted Oct 2, 2007 19:09 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)In reply to: IMAP's real problem was scale and timing by philipstorry
Parent article: Interview with Colin Walters about the online desktop
The biggest problem is the IMAP protocol. When have you ever used an IMAP client that just worked 100%? Never! Every IMAP client I've ever seen is a creeping nightmare for the user to configure (SSL? TLS? Kerb? NTLM? GSSAPI?). Oh, you can get it to barely work, but it will never work right. There will always be oddities like all your folders appearing as subfolders of your inbox, or separator issues, or folders randomly disappearing (subscription issues), etc. IMAP is a horribly overcomplex protocol for what it does, and effectively makes it impossible to write a sold client.
Another problem is synchronicity. All IMAP clients that I've seen seem to think that they have exclusive access to the mailbox. When I read a message on my phone, I want it instantly marked as read on my desktop. When I move a message from one folder to another, I want to see that change everywhere, instantly. Today, you need to quit & restart each client for them to update their status. That's a showstopper.
Another problem is filtering. This is something that MUST be done server-side. Client-side filtering is simply too big a maintenance headache for anybody uses multiple clients to access the same mailbox. SIEVE is awful. I'm not sure what the guys who wrote it were thinking... Probably something along the lines of, "if we make it take 5 man-years to write a working Sieve GUI, we're assured luuuucrative consulting contracts for the rest of our lives. hahahaha!" Sieve is actually worse than nothing because it's now an obstacle to developing a good, simple, working solution.
What about standardizing tagging and labeling? And junk mail handling?
I guess that will do for now. I could keep going if prompted. :)
Today, the problem is poorly designed protocols. The webmail guys don't have to fight IMAP and Sieve, so they don't need to worry about broken clients/servers, so they can develop their software 10X faster than the poor desktop guys.
It pains me to watch all this vital information slowly moving into opaque silos. But, at this point, I don't know what can be done about it.