Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-httpbis-http2-16.txt> (Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2) to Proposed Standard

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 8:13 AM, Stefan Eissing <stefan.eissing@greenbytes.de
> wrote:

> 3. Clarification on server-initiated push?
> In discussions with colleagues some had the notion that HTTP2 would allow
> server initiated "requests". My reading of the draft is that this is not
> really the case. Server pushes are only defined for streams opened by the
> client.
> - Is this the correct reading of the spec?
>

That's right. The server can push 0..N transactions on any stream opened by
the client.


> - If yes, has HTTP2 any advise how to best do long polling or what is the
> recommended alternative?
>

client opens a stream indicating its interested in an event stream.. the
server may/may not provide a response but it leaves that stream open for
the duration of time it might push. When it pushes events (represented by a
request/response pair) it associates the new even streams with the client
stream. There can be N of these events in parallel, which makes it
considerably nicer than long polling. Whenever the server decides it is
done pushing things it can close the odd stream.. or the client can stream
reset the odd stream if it decides its done first.