> > * the command-line option for the SSLContext won't work, since a
> > context is a custom object, not a string; I would rework this part
> > anyway, since I don't think separate options for the "SSL host" are
> > useful (I'd rather add a SSL-enabling flag; also, STARTTLS can be
> > queried from the capabilities)
> 
> I'm not sure I understand which part you're talking about here....the 
> tests don't take a context for anything that I can see, and the 
> mechanism I use in nntplib (a context as a named argument) is the 
> same one used in smtplib and poplib for <prot>_SSL. 

I'm talking about the code under "if __name__ == '__main__'".
Specifically the "-c" option for specifying an SSL context.

> > * in test_starttls, I would clearly report that the server doesn't
> > support STARTTLS, e.g.:
> 
> Can do. I didn't know about self.skip; I don't really understand the 
> testing framework, I was just working by comparison to the other 
> tests.

Well, actually it's "self.skipTest(...)". My bad.