From: mathew Date: 2006-01-04T05:12:58+09:00 Subject: Re: new project: Ruby Message System (RMS) Jeffrey Moss wrote: > I have always used mail servers to do this in the past. The point of a message system is to ensure that: 1. Messages are delivered only once. 2. Messages can be sent without reliance on packet-based systems; specificially, without reliance on TCP/IP. 3. Message delivery is reliable. 4. Messages can be delivered using multiple channels in parallel. 5. Messages can be broadcast correctly. In general, none of those is true for an SMTP mail server, and 2, 4 and 5 are going to be very difficult to implement on top of SMTP unless you also define which SMTP MTAs may be used. I'd also question the original assumption that security isn't an issue. If you use SMTP as your transport, security is definitely going to be an issue. To put it another way: Sure, I've used SMTP instead of a real message system. But if I wanted to build a real message system, I wouldn't start off with SMTP... mathew -- My parents went to the lost kingdom of Hyrule and all I got was this lousy triforce.