Re: The use of binary data in any part of HTTP 2.0 is not good

[Tim Bray <[e-mail]>]

Would it be possible to be data-driven?  Textual formats are
well-known to be easier to debug; but clearly, if there’s a
substantial performance benefit to going all-binary, so be it. So what
is the advantage, quantitatively? -T

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:
> In one of our recent meetings, one of the grey-bearded IETF old-timers (I forget which, sorry) said that a textual-protocol was a nice-to-have, but that it shouldn't be a determining factor in design.
>
> I.e., if you can get everything you need out of a protocol, *and* make it textual, do so, but if it detracts from the value you get from it, don't let that constrain you.
>
> FWIW, I think that's a good rule of thumb. However, this means that the community is going to need *excellent* tooling for analysing, debugging, etc. HTTP traffic; and I don't just mean a Wireshark plugin!
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> On 21/01/2013, at 9:36 AM, William Chan (陈智昌) <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> There are many advantages to using binary data. If you would like a
>> textual representation of a protocol, I advise using a utility to
>> generate one for you.
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Pablo <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>>   I have readed this document
>>> http://dev.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-protocol/spdy-protocol-draft1 today [1].
>>>
>>> I just wanted to say that I think that the use of any binary data (framing,
>>> header compression, etc.) in any place of the "header" part of HTTP protocol
>>> is not good; so, please only use plaintext for HTTP 2.0 because, otherwise,
>>> that will make very difficult to "see" the headers's protocol :)
>>>
>>> Thats all,
>>> Thanks for reading this few lines, sorry for my basic English, and I hope
>>> that you can re-think all this of using binary data in any part of HTTP X.X
>>> (ej: session layer).
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] I started knowing about HTTP 2.0 here:
>>> http://webscannotes.com/2012/10/09/http-2-0-officially-in-the-works/
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/
>
>
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