Re: HTTP: T-T-T-Talking about MIME Generation

On Fri, 16 Dec 1994, John Franks wrote:

> Correct me if I am wrong, but I concluded from Spero's postings that
> nothing currently proposed including MGET, hold-open, or even HTTP-NG
> would improve (or even match?) the user's perceived performance

What NETSCAPE is doing is orthoganal to these proposals, at least the
generic proposals.  When I use NETSCAPE on a narrow pipe, it isn't 
that impressive and to me a least a bit distracting but that is mostly
in the details of the current implemenation which hopefully will improve.
I think what they are attempting to achieve is good from the end
user's perspective but UPP will be horrible if the network's (or server's)
ability to deliver data is choked.

The varitions of MGET and HTTP-ng are likely to dramatically improve
the net responsiveness of all browsers as well as reduce the cost of
the network infrastructure for a given service level.

I also suspect that the market is young enough that acceptance will be
based on many factors.  New function support (html3 for example) or
simply correctness of HTML processing will be important. 

Cost is also important for many corporate situations. My client would like
to have a WEB browser available for everyone but considering that a
large percentage of their employees wouldn't use it they are leary of
commiting to pay much real money.

All this is to say that things are moving to fast for me to believe that
one set of desireable characteristics will win out.  Win95 is supposed
to include a TCP/IP stack.  If Microsoft follows IBM's warp lead and
provides a good WEB browser bundled with Win95 their may not be much
market for anything.

Dave Morris

Received on Saturday, 17 December 1994 00:58:42 UTC