Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur programmer" standard
James Graham <jgraham@opera.com> Mon, 26 July 2010 18:34 UTC
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Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:34:18 +0000
From: James Graham <jgraham@opera.com>
To: Greg Wilkins <gregw@webtide.com>
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Cc: hybi@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur programmer" standard
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On 07/26/2010 06:53 PM, Greg Wilkins wrote: > On 27 July 2010 01:42, James Graham <jgraham@opera.com > <mailto:jgraham@opera.com>> wrote: > > > Will people still be willing to make breaking changes in, say, a > year, if it has come to pass that Mozilla, Google, Apple and Opera > are all shipping something like the current protocol and a > non-trivial amount of content is using it? > > > Code running in the browsers should be dependent only on the API and the > behavioural contract that it makes. I think that there is a large > amount of freedom to change the protocol beneath the websocket API and > the application code will hardly notice (except maybe it will work more > reliably). Javascript code running in the browser is indeed not a problem. > The servers will have to change, but they should also be protecting > their applications with APIs. Yet another reason that it would be crazy > for applications to develop their own protocol implementations. "The servers will have to change" is another way of saying "browser makers will have to be prepared to break existing content". Historically they have been very reluctant to do this* ? the only common exception is for security holes. I think it would be foolish to operate under the premise that WebSockets is special in this regard. Instead, I believe that the group should make the prudent assumption that there is a window of opportunity measured in months to make breaking changes to the protocol. * See for example the <plaintext> element which is widely supported despite being described as "a fudge" in 1991 [1] and "obsolete" by 1993 [2], or the localStorage mechanism which was introduced recently but found to have a concurrency issue that had to be fixed in an inelegant, but backwards compatible, way. [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/1991SepOct/0003.html [2] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/draft-ietf-iiir-html-01.txt
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Mike Belshe
- [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur progr… Maciej Stachowiak
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Willy Tarreau
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Willy Tarreau
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… James Graham
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Maciej Stachowiak
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Julian Reschke
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Ian Fette (イアンフェッティ)
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… James Graham
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Micheil Smith
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Dave Cridland
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… James Graham
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Adam Barth
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… James Graham
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… John Tamplin
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Joe Hildebrand
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Protocol simplicity and the "amateur p… James Graham
- [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Ian Hickson
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Maciej Stachowiak
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Rob Sayre
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Michael Carter
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets John Tamplin
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren
- [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future revi… Ian Hickson
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Maciej Stachowiak
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Simone Bordet
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Dave Cridland
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Thomson, Martin
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets gabriel montenegro
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Thomson, Martin
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Willy Tarreau
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets gabriel montenegro
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Willy Tarreau
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Adam Barth
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Willy Tarreau
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Dave Cridland
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Lars Eggert
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Pieter Hintjens
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Dave Cridland
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Jamie Lokier
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Jamie Lokier
- Re: [hybi] Adding clarification regarding future … Jamie Lokier
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Jamie Lokier
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Ian Fette (イアンフェッティ)
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets John Tamplin
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Dave Cridland
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Martin J. Dürst
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Alexey Melnikov
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Martin J. Dürst
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Greg Wilkins
- Re: [hybi] Proposed way forward for WebSockets Anne van Kesteren