Re: section 1, intro, for review

> > Personally, I think it is completely outrageous when people claim that the
> > Web architecture should be the one and only Internet application
> > architecture.  I can understand the desire for URI to be universal, but not
> > for the entire Web architecture. I like using fetchmail to grab my mail
> > (how it does so is not very relevant because mail is a store-and-forward
> > application architecture). 
> 
> I do not follow this bit. How would Fetchmail be a less useful program
> if it were to "use web architecture", as you define it below:

It wouldn't be less useful.  The point is that it would gain nothing
from doing so.  It is a store and forward messaging system -- the application
consists of delivering the message, that's all.

> >...
> > The fundamental notion that defines the Web is the interconnectedness of
> > resources -- that everything which can be identified can also be
> > ** indirectly ** described, manipulated, and related to other resources,
> > and thereby can be traversed as an information space even when the
> > resources themselves are not limited to documents.
> 
> Why wouldn't this be a good basis for some hypothetical future mail
> processing system? I would personally love to be able to construct URIs
> into my mailbox and resolve them through HTTP.

It isn't hypothetical at all -- you can do that right now, after the
message is delivered into your mailbox.  The mail application (to be
more accurate, the mail transport and delivery agents) exist to deliver
the mail.  MUA's are rarely considered part of the mail application.

There was a Mac mail client by Alex Hoppmann in 1994 that did all of
its mail functions via an HTTP server.  He went on to Microsoft and became
part of the Outlook team.

....Roy

Received on Tuesday, 19 March 2002 21:15:21 UTC