Re: [Beacon] Required Beacon-Age: handling.

On Mon Aug 18 2014 at 10:27:12 AM Ilya Grigorik <igrigorik@google.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 12:22 AM, Sigbjorn Finne <sof@opera.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks much for clarifying. For implementations that don't delay
>> initiation (I know of none that do, but perhaps there are), this would
>> amount to "Beacon-Age: 0" for all practical purposes. Which brings up the
>> second question raised initially - what benefit does this bring?
>>
>
> Initial implementations don't delay, but I think we should (*strongly*)
> encourage this UA behavior - energy savings on mobile, etc. To make things
> easier in the long run, we should also make it clear to analytics vendors,
> etc, that this is the intended behavior... Hence the header, even if its
> "0" today.
>
> That said, I'm torn on the "Beacon-Age: 0". On the one hand, saved bytes
> are good, but I do think it could make things a bit more difficult.. If
> some UA decides to skip the header (bug or otherwise), then as a developer
> I have to resort to UA detection (ugh) to winnow out valid vs. invalid
> cases. A guaranteed header makes things much easier.
>

You don't need UA detection.  Just interpret the lack of a Beacon-Age
header as zero.

Adam