- From: Chuck Shotton <cshotton@biap.com>
- Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 14:41:34 -0600
- To: Jeffrey Mogul <mogul@pa.dec.com>, Adrian.Colley@sse.ie
- Cc: Dove@eworld.com, http-wg (will serve files for coffee) <http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com>, mogul@pa.dec.com
At 7:48 PM 3/23/95, Jeffrey Mogul wrote: > > 1. The mobile client requests a document from the proxy, indicating >it only > > wants a single "page" (of client-specified length). > > 2. The proxy fetches the full document (or perhaps only the first page, > > depending on the version of its source) > > 3. The proxy returns the desired "page" to the client. > > The mobile client can do this by specifying a small TCP receive > window and not opening it again. If you want the first 1024 bytes, > for instance, you set the TCP receive window to 1024 + the probable > length of the reply header. When you receive the reply header, > make sure the TCP window doesn't move, but will decrease to zero. > >Manipulating the TCP window in this way is potentially risky, because >it can interact with the so-called "Silly-Window Syndrome Avoidance >Algorithm" to produce long delays when absolutely nothing happens for >many seconds. Presumably, on a low-bandwidth link, this is exactly >what you don't want to do! What's more, HTTP should be considered transport independent. Relying on something as cheesey as twaddling the underlying protocol to do something that should be under conscious control between the client and server is a gross hack. Either build the mechanism into HTTP or live without it. Hacking the transport layer as a means to this end is a recipe for wreck and ruin the minute someone sticks this protocol on top of something besides TCP/IP. Remember, WWW != Unix and HTTP != TCP/IP. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Chuck Shotton cshotton@biap.com http://www.biap.com/ cshotton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu "I am NOT here."
Received on Thursday, 23 March 1995 13:03:54 UTC