[imp] IMP Slow on POP3

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Luis Galan <imp at es.clara.net>:

>> You need to read the POP3 RFC.  This is exactly how POP3 is supposed
> to work.
>> If you want more efficient remote mail management, you *MUST* use
> IMAP.
> I don't understand why. Like in older versions of imp, every message
> have an "id", you only have to do RETR "id" and the get the message.
> imp  seems to get all the mailbox and then shows the message that you
> want to see.

Because the older version of IMP wasn't so smart.  IMP 3 *needs* to know the
structure of the entire mailbox because things may have changed while reading
the current message (i.e. messages may have been deleted/added to the 
mailbox).
  The older versions of IMP would completely ignore these changes, so that is
why you could suddenly find yourself pushed back to the INBOX, even though
there were 5-6 messages unread at the end of the message you just 
viewed.  That
is not a very intuitive interface (i.e. the arrow keys in the message screen
are not performing the way you expect them to).

So you may consider IMP 3 "more inefficient", but I see it as IMP 2 was 
"buggy".

It all boils down to the fact that POP3 is *NOT* a good way to remotely read
email, especially through a webmail system.

michael

______________________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at bigworm.colorado.edu]
The University of Colorado at Boulder