Re: [hybi] [Fwd: Comments on draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-35]

[Greg Wilkins <[e-mail]>]

Julian Reschke wrote:

> I think the specification, in its current form, completely fails to present
> itself as such a solution.  To me, it reads less like an open protocol
> specification, and rather more like a programming team internal design
> memo.

Julian,

I too have been very critical of the websocket protocol.
But I think that the IETF and specifically the hybi group should not
get become "captured" by trying to correct short comings of this
protocol and it's specification.   It is very difficult to critique
the protocol and/or proposal as the authors find it very suitable for
their specific purposes.

Instead, I believe that the websocket protocol should be viewed as just
one  use-case for a bidirectional protocol coming from the whatwg efforts
on HTML5.  I think it should consider it more of a requirements document
than a real proposal for an open protocol specification.

If the IETF were to move forward on a real open protocol specification that
met the use-case of the websocket proposal (among others), then surely
all parties would be content with the result.



> but I find myself asking:  why not just specify a hand-off extension to
> HTTP
> that allows bidirectional communication to proceed using a protocol such as
> BEEP?  I fear there's a certain amount of reinvention going on here.  But I
> could be wrong.

I previously advocated BEEP as a possible protocol for the bidirection web.
See the thread "Is there a traffic jam?" in the hybi list, which briefly
discussed BEEP before going off topic.

The argument that eventually convinced me that BEEP was not entirely
suitable, was that while BEEP framing is simple and suitable, the channel
management of BEEP is rather complex and requires XML.


So I draw your attention again to the BWTP draft proposals.  The first
of these http://bwtp.wikidot.com/main:proposal, was very much influenced
by HTTP - but the feedback received was that it too was a bit too complex
for the features that it provided.

The second BWTP proposal: http://bwtp.wikidot.com/main:proposal1 is modeled
more off BEEP than HTTP.   I believe it provides a rich bidirectional
feature set, which maintaining the simplicity of BEEP style framing.


But even if you find BWTP inappropriate, I believe that the IETF
should be working from known successful protocols and protocol
experience to design, test and specify an new bidirectional protocol.

Surely the IETF should build from it's existing knowledge base
rather than adopt a binary protocol proposal for a very
specific purpose that is a radical departure from the style
and substance of past IETF protocols!


cheers