Re: [hybi] How to select which websocket protocol to use

Francis Brosnan Blazquez <francis@aspl.es> Thu, 24 December 2009 10:37 UTC

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From: Francis Brosnan Blazquez <francis@aspl.es>
To: Greg Wilkins <gregw@webtide.com>
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Subject: Re: [hybi] How to select which websocket protocol to use
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Hi,

> I'm not a big fan for exposing more detail in the API, because
> that just exposes transport details to the application.

Current WebSocket javascript API is perfect assuming it provides a TCP
connection (or close to)...however it seems there is no consensus on
WebSocket protocol design.

BWTP has the advantage that works over existing HTTP infrastructure
(specially HTTP proxy) and its framing design is more secure (length
limited) and consistent (only one) but it provides lot of features that
makes it too heavy for the purpose (implement something similar to
TCP). 

..and WebSocket has the advantage that fits better the purpose but has a
problem with existing infrastructure and a framing style which could
provide binary support but at the end, how is this signaled from
javascript API? Clearly UTF-8 based framing is flagged as default in the
draft.

Ian, I think when IANA proposed WebSocket to use 80 and 443 port, maybe
they were also saying to accomodate the WebSocket protocol to be
friendly with existing HTTP infrastructure. What do you think?

In the other hand, there is a general consensus that an octet and length
limited framing is more robust, secure and general (you can transmit
both UTF-8 or arbitrary binary content). Why don't change this to have a
single framing style?

Cheers!
-- 
Francis Brosnan Blazquez <francis@aspl.es>
ASPL