How to use nntplib efficiently?

[Bill McClain]

In <39183DE8.A911F9D3 at erols.com>, ""Edward C. Jones" <edcjones at erols.com>" wrote:
> I have written various special purpose news-downloading programs.
> It appears that my code downloads headers slower than Netscape
> for Linux. What is the best way to download new headers? My ISP
> does not allow the "newnews" command.

I keep track of the first and last article numbers returned by "group" and
use "xover" to fetch headers in the ranges I haven't yet retrieved. Normally,
I get only the range "higher" than my last highest article, but I also
have a "backfill" mode to fill in gaps in article sequencing, which seems
to be a big problem these days.

I haven't timed it, but it seems fast to me. Mail me if you would like source.

-Bill