RE: Nature of Application Protocols!

Personally, I think "pull" or "push" are better applied to
applications than to protocols. Web browsing is mainly 'pull', and
sending email is mainly 'push'.  Both HTTP and SMTP
have 'pull' and 'push' operations.

The verbs apply to the relationship of the main data
flow to the initiator. When sending email, the initiator
sends the data (usually), and when browsing the web,
the data is (mainly) sent to the initiator.

These are informal terms which are useful to describe
the gross characteristics of an application but don't
have useful formal definitions.

W3C Workshop on Push Technology (1997)
  http://www.w3.org/Architecture/9709_Workshop/


Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Friday, 30 August 2002 11:59:07 UTC