Re: Connecting to a newsserver with nntp.

[gsstark@MIT.EDU (Greg Stark)]

There are lots of problems with trying to determine if the host is up through
some other mechinism like ping.  Trusting two different protocols to agree
about whether the host is available is going to be inherently unreliable.
Ping itself is extrememely non-portable, it works differently under different
versions of Unix, and isn't available at all for some operating systems.

It's also not clear how long to wait for the ping response.  The same
arguments that justify(?) making the TCP timeout so large hold for ICMP
packets.  If Gnus has to wait for your modem to dial in an initiate a PPP
connection it could well take 30+ seconds before the first ping gets through.
I'm not sure why Linux thought the traditional 60 seconds was inadequate, but
there's no reason to think those arguments don't hold in this case.

The real answer regarding C-g is to implement asynchronous backend interfaces.
Then Gnus can initiate connections to the nntp backend and your mail backend
and allow you to read your mail while the nntp backend is still waiting to
time out.  Lars has already indicated that this is in the cards for Red Gnus.
(Right Lars?)

greg