RE: MIME as a vCalendar element separator - bad move...

["Lewis Geer (Exchange)" <lewisg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

But wait a second, vcalendar is a compound document format with 
separators.  MIME is a compound document format with separators.  Why 
are we reinventing the wheel?

And everyone gives the example of PDAs, but since many PDAs are now 
handling email and http, it makes sense that the PDA OS developer to 
include APIs that decode mime, as it minimizes overall storage 
footprint.

Lewis

> From:  owner-ietf-calendar@imc.org [SMTP:owner-ietf-calendar@imc.org] 
> On Behalf Of Skip Montanaro
> 
> Of course MIME is really a bit more than an envelope.  It's also a 
> separator
> device and a transport compatibility device, designed to keep the 
> elements
> of a collection of virtual documents apart, identify their content, and
> ensure all the bits get to their destination untwiddled.and the 
> stuffing as well.
>   [..snip..] 
> Now return to the actual problem at hand.  vCalendar is a compound 
> document
> format.  It uses BEGIN/END blocks to separate the various subsections of
> each document.  Because it's self-contained, you can easily stuff it 
> into
> lots of different kinds of envelopes without disturbing it.  You can 
> throw a
> MIME wrapper around it and email it over the Internet.  You can also 
> wrap it
> in little infrared photons and send it over an IrDA link.
>   [..snip..] 
> If you require MIME to separate the various parts of a vCalendar object 
> it
> becomes much more difficult to deal with in toto.  MIME becomes sort of 
> a
> cancerous envelope and it requires significant surgery extract the 
> letter
> intact.  If I want to send a vCalendar/MIME object over an IrDA link I 
> wind
> up either disassembling it and reassembling it using different 
> separators to
> send over the link, or suffer with the transmission overhead on the 
> slowish
> IrDA link and try to shoehorn a MIME decoder into my PIM.
>  [..snip..] 
> 
>