Re: [widgets] Zip vs GZip Tar

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Gregg Tavares <gman@google.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry if I'm not familiar with all the details of how the widgets spec
> is going but the specs encourage comment so I'm commenting :-)
>
> It seems like widgets have 2 uses
>
> #1) As a way to package an HTML5 app that can be downloaded similar to a
> native
>     executable
>
> #2) As a way to package an HTML5 app that can be embedded in a page but
> easily
>     distributed as a single file (ie, do what Flash / Silverlight / Unity3D
>     currently do except based in HTML5 / EMCAScript)
>
> Use #2 would benefit tremendously if like Flash / Sliverlight / Unity3D the
> application could start as soon as it has enough info to start as supposed
> to
> having to wait for the entire package to download.
>
> To accomplish that goal requires using a format that can be streamed.
> Zip is not such a format. Zip files store their table of contents at the end
> of
> the file. They can have multiple table of contents but only the last one
> found is valid. That means the entire file has to be downloaded before a UA
> can
> correctly figure out what's in the file.
>

That's incorrect. Zip is streamable. Go read the format.

Received on Wednesday, 28 April 2010 21:37:14 UTC