Or, more probably, because I&#x27;ve actually read the spec and understood what IMAP really tries to do, saw how widespread its usage was in so many languages, and imagined what could be possible with a protocol <i>we already have</i>. I have toyed with it in the past already, and intend to do in the future because just everybody has it, with or without their knowledge, and can use its power.<p>Yes, IMAP is messy and inconsistent and hard to parse, if you blindly read examples and try to build a naive parser out of that. When you&#x27;re trying to do as much as IMAP tries to do starting from scratch, that&#x27;s barely surprising. Still, IMAP already has many tools, libraries and software that can be re-used.