Hacker News Reader

A really puzzling part: "SMTP is a ‘push’ protocol that does not allow one to ‘pull’ messages from a remote server on demand. To do this a mail client shall use POP3 or IMAP. Within the framework of implementing DNA data exchange it is decided to use the protocol POP3."

View on HN

What’s puzzling about that? It’s true, and seems a reasonable choice

Unless they invented a creative way to use pop3, it is not 'pull' in any reasonable sense, because you can only pull what has already been pushed. You can't even even select what to pull once more than one request is outstanding, because pop3 does not convey information beyond message size.

Also, you have to poll continuously, destroying the benefit of having something pushed over smtp.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com