Re: Comments on Byte range draft

Gavin Nicol wrote:
> 
> >> incomplete. This is great for small pages, but if you try fetching
> >> small peices of a 5MB document, it makes no sense.
> >
> >What makes you think it makes no sense.
> 
> Give a 5MB HTML document to Netscape Navigator. For certain media
> types, and HTML is one, you can request peices (not byte ranges), and
> do not need to reparse the data. For example, it makes more sense to
> ask for single elements from HTML, than a byte range.

I'm not disagreeing with your application, but I am saying
that byteranges can make sense for any object, as demonstrated
by partial caching.

> 
> >> Byte ranges are a lazy replacement for a general naming mechanism.
> >
> >What's your naming scheme for JPEG files?  How about AVI
> >video streams?  Bytes are already a general purpose naming scheme,
> >and they have been used for a number of years.  There is no
> >need to invent another one.
> 
> Byte ranges are not sufficient for many data types, and indeed, are
> potentially harmful. A general naming mechanism would allow byte range
> naming, as well as things like asking for elements m to n in an HTML
> document.

Ari's proposal allows for generalizable requests.  Bytes is simply
one of the range request methods.

:lou
-- 
Lou Montulli                 http://www.netscape.com/people/montulli/
       Netscape Communications Corp.