Re: [hybi] Reliable message delivery (was Re: Technical feedback.)

[Greg Wilkins <[e-mail]>]

I don't think you can assume that most websocket using software
and/or subprotocols will have the same developer working on
the client side and the server side.

I can see separate impls for opera, firefox, jetty, tomcat, httpd etc.
for some a standard subprotocol for multiplexing ws connections.

I can also see standards emerge for ws connection management that
supports reconnects and retransmission.  These might be implemented
in server frameworks and in js libraries like dojo and jquery.

Even if the dev team is the same client and server, it's just
as likely that different developers will work on the javascript
vs server language portions.    Even if the same person wrote
both parts, it sounds like fragile design to assume implementation
details of the other part.

Websockets is meant to be a significant change in web application
development and new app models are likely to emerge.   I think it
is very dangerous to say anything is "typical" of a protocol
not yet deployed.  Even if there are typical usage patterns, I
don't think it is good to design a protocol that only works for
them.



regards




Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Feb 2010, Graham Klyne wrote:
>> Ian Hickson wrote:
>>> The server and the client are typically written by the same person.
>> If this is the basis on which the protocol is being specified, I don't
>> understand why it's being done in a standards body.
> 
> So that the platform on top of which the client is written can be 
> interoperably implemented such that it is possible for the clients to run 
> on any implementation of the platform interoperably.
> 
> To clarify the terminology, from the perspective of the subprotocol 
> running on Web Sockets, the platform is the browser with the Web Socket 
> API, and the client is the JS code invoking the API, and implementing the 
> client part of the subprotocol. The server implements both the Web Socket 
> protocol and the subprotocol running over it.
> 
> The subprotocol is like HTTP, IRC, FTP, etc; Web Sockets is like TCP, and 
> the platform is like the OS's network stack. Except everything is moved up 
> one level.
> 
> HTH,