Re: HTML Streaming

pflynn@imbolc.ucc.ie (Peter Flynn) wrote:

>Read again and try to understand what it says. Streaming is NOT the
>display of data before the entire file has been transmitted: it says
>**with** streaming, the client...etc. Streaming is an activity
>external to the display of data: it is a manipulation of the
>transmission to achieve a steady flow of data.
>
>> Their is no 
>> mention of "IP transmission", "refreshing of the data", etc.
>
>This is why you need to study and learn these things instead of
>relying on what you find on the Web. 

Okay :) Lets try this one more time. I have taken classes on this stuff. I 
didn't learn this on the web. I checked a book I got at the University of 
Virginia. I says I am right. I asked a friend. He says I am right. He said 
the definition at the page could be misunderstood. He gave me the url of a
much clearer definition;
http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/streaming.html

>> They are not added to all the tags and their is no overall
>> description of the page. I think their should be a general
>> description for size and other attributes that should then be added
>> to the events tag in the head. It would be sent first, give an
>> overall description of the page and attributes wouldn't need to be
>> added to a new tags or existing tags.
>
>That would certainly be another possibility. But you still haven't
>done anything about the _rate_ or steadiness at which the data arrives
>at the browser end.

YES! Please, consider this other possibility. Please do not bring up anything

related to the definition of streaming again. I am sorry I brought it up. I
thought it would be an easy way to understand what I was talking about.
Apparently, it is not.

>Read again. I proposed an EXTENT _attribute_, not an element.

I don't think proposing a new attribute for every new tag or tag that does
not already have an attribute is the most efficient way to deal with this 
problem.

>> it. For this to work, you would need to rewrite HTML. This is what I
>> am trying to avoid.  
>
>No you're not. By inventing the <EVENT> element you are rewriting HTML.

Many tags do not have an attribute that allows it to be predefined by the 
browser. My proposal is a separate listing, the events tag, and a uniform 
description of sizes, content etc. Your proposal rewrites many tags. I just 
add a single tag. I would not consider this a major rewrite.

>I think not. You seem to be confused by rather a lot of this. Perhaps
>it would be a good idea if you read a book on HTML and SGML. Mine was
>published in 1995 [1], so it doesn't include the latest WebTV or
>Netscape elements, but everything it says about HTML design remains
>valid.

No insult, but I really don't want to read your book. As I have said, I 
already took a class.

>Only in Lynx, the W3C linemode browser, and w3-mode. All the other
>browsers I know use a variable-width font as their default, in which
>each character has its own width (ie an "i" is narrower than a "w").

But the space given to the i and the w are the same. Really! Try it.

>Please don't change my examples. The number of characters in my
>example was 32, and I explained why this was so, because I
>deliberately indented the second record so that it included extra
>spaces, in order to test your proposition. 

Stick it in an HTML file and see how it is displayed.

>this proposal. It's very interesting, and I think the underlying idea
>has a lot of merit, but without a firm grounding in the relevant
>background you may run into trouble, especially from the gureaux, who
>are mostly CS postgrads, and will make mincemeat of the proposal as
>it stands.

I am glad you think my proposal has merit. Are you one of these gureaux?

>Yes it is, it's made me think quite hard about it, and I've concluded
>that browsers could do almost synchronous display right now with only
>trivial modifications to HTML. Thanks for raising the subject.

If you mean, adding an attribute to every tag that does not have it and every

new tag that comes along; I don't think this is trivial.

Albert Fine

Received on Saturday, 30 August 1997 21:01:03 UTC