Re: Why is "Send group command before requesting articles" even optional?

[sander]

While I can concede that the server SHOULD be able to find the article without a group specified as per the NNTP specification, that doesn't mean that it is necessarily the most efficient way to do so.

So, do you say sending the group command will make the download faster? If so, did you measure that, with and without group command?

[safihre]

This was made the default a long long time ago. Just because the majority of servers don't need it at all and groups are just not really used anymore in their backend storage system (I know this first hand from the Highwinds engineers).
So we still support it for cases like yours, but by default it's just another request we have to make and another answer we have to listen for. Unfortunately that's not very optimal in Python...

[sander]

It depends on your server and what software it is running. For Giganews and the Highwinds servers, it won't make any difference. My server uses NNTPswitch as the front-end, and multiple spool servers carrying different groups on the back end. If you connect and don't specify a group, it will cycle through the various back-ends and connect you to the first one where it finds it, which might not be the best spool for that group. If it is the best spool for that group, then it won't make any difference until you make a new connection and it has to cycle through all the back ends again.

So ... did you measure the download speed against your server with and without group command ...