Re: [quicwg/base-drafts] Why are there two ways of associating push with requests? (#3275)

[Ryan Hamilton <[e-mail]>]

> > Recall that in HTTP/2, the motivating use case for PUSH_PROMISE was the ability to promise more resources than the open stream limit would allow to be pushed. (Consider an image search in which the server wants to push a grid of 100 thumbnails when the open stream limit is 10).
> 
> Was that a feature or a bug? By my understanding, we've been attempting to fix that accounting loophole in HTTP/3.

It was definitely a feature! (Though the lack of *any* limit on the number of promised resources might have been a bug). In particular, the feature came into existence because, iirc, because Roberto tried to do a server push demo of exactly this use case (page of thumbnails) but it didn't work because the stream limits got in the way. After that, he proposed the push/promise distinction with the explicit intent of allowing more promises than pushes.
 
> Some of what is being discussed here is a retread of #2559 (in particular [#2559 (comment)](https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/issues/2559#issuecomment-476961392))

Agreed. To be clear, I rather like the explicit MAX_STREAMS signal. For bidirectional streams and web browsing, this seems to work out extremely nicely.

For server push, on the other hand, it's a non-obvious sharp edge, particular with respect to HTTP/2. (So at a minimum, I think we should provide guidance on how to push with HTTP/3 effectively)

> > However, in HTTP/3 this is not the case. The server will be unable to open a new push stream until it receives a new MAX_STREAMS from the client increasing the limit. But that burns an RTT. In which case, there's no point in pushing at all. So to avoid this, a client could increase the MAX_STREAMS to some sort of enormous value. But that does not behave like the HTTP/2 open stream limit.
> 
> I don't follow. The HTTP/2 behaviour seems to equate to constrained concurrent requests, and uncontrained pushes. Therefore, setting a sensible value for `MAX_STREAMS bidi` and an enormous value for `MAX_STREAMS uni` seems like what you want. 

Not quite. HTTP/2 provides unlimited *promises*, but limited concurrent *pushes* (via the open steams limit). HTTP/3 can limit promises via MAX_PUSH_ID, and limit concurrent pushed via MAX_STREAMS uni. So to replicate HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 client could try a huge MAX_PUSH_ID and a small MAX_STREAMS uni. That would have the same concurrent behavior as HTTP/2, but would run the risky of adding a 1-RTT delay for pushes above the MAX_STREAMS limit.

> Although I not convinced that is a feature.

That's a fair point. If so we should probably have guidance how managing MAX_PUSH_ID and MAX_STREAMS uni together to make this obvious. (Though at this point I'm coming around the to position of other folks in Chrome that push in general is rarely a performance win and typically a footgun and we should stop using it)
 
> > At a minimum we should probably provide advice about how the client should manage MAX_STREAMS and MAX_PUSH_ID
> 
> If you're trying to mimic the "push 100 tumbnails without an RTT" behaviour, you'll have to keep in mind the value of initial_max_stream_data_uni too.

Yes, flow control also comes into play for sure. (Thankfully that's not much different from HTTP/2). If a client's flow control limits are less than a BDP, the client is "gonna have a bad time" :) 

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