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We're not talking about webmail here, but direct access by HTTP request, either from a website or a desktop/mobile client. Some other relevant links for this:
by rvkennedy 15y ago
We're not talking about webmail here, but direct access by HTTP request, either from a website or a desktop/mobile client. Some other relevant links for this:
http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2010/02/how-to-replace-imap.html http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2010/02/how-to-replace-imap.html
http://blog.webhooks.org/2009/02/13/restful-email-over-http/ http://blog.webhooks.org/2009/02/13/restful-email-over-http/
HTTP has had about 20 years of use, development, testing - culminating in SPDY now, which could get even 40% faster in some cases. I'm not sure I can think of a good reason not to make the switch.
- baudehlo 15y agoThere's probably more overhead in the request via HTTP than there is via IMAP, to be honest. I can't see any reason to make this switch other than being able to support port 80.
- justincormack 15y agoThe reason is to write standardized webmail applications and other javascript apps that want to interact with the email universe.
- gioele 15y ago> I'm not sure I can think of a good reason not to make the switch. IDLE? Tagged, out-of-order replies? You can probably make a SPDY-based protocol that does 99% of IMAP, but HTTP is too limited for current IMAP possibilities.
- Kadin 15y agoI guess I'm not really sold on why this is better than IMAP, which is a protocol that, um, actually exists and you can use today. Fixing the perceived drawbacks of IMAP would seem to be a more productive goal than trying to produce a competing protocol/standard. (Cf. http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/)