Re: HTTP/2 Header Encoding Status Update

Mark Nottingham <mnot@...> writes:

> 
> One other thing - 
> 
> On 28/02/2013, at 8:16 AM, James M Snell <jasnell@...> wrote:
> 
> > Date values:
> > 
> >  1. Dates are encoded as the number of seconds since a new epoch
> > (Midnight GMT, Jan 1 1990)
> 
> So, how many bytes does changing the epoch save us?
> 
> I just get concerned about putting little landmines like this in...

I'd really *love* to see the whole epoch concept nuked in HTTP/2 and force
everyone to use an ISO 8601 profile like html instead
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime
(requiring UTC-only if necessary)

We've already been bitten by an http product that seemed to use the same epochs
as everyone else (even calling them "unix epochs") but actually counted epochs
in local dos/windows time. The problem was un-obvious till we needed to perform
some cross-system analysis and discovered they disagreed on time even though
they all used the "same" epoch format. Getting time right in an i18n context is
hard enough without obfuscating the format.

Do the benefits of an epoch really outweigh the benefits of avoiding time
mistakes in an http user?

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

Received on Friday, 1 March 2013 10:41:43 UTC