Re: Conditional HTML w/<INSERT> (was: Microsoft IE)

At 1:12 PM 1/29/96, M. Hedlund wrote:
[Description of <INSERT> structure]

>Advantages:
[...]
>* Doesn't stuff all possible variants into one document (avoids filesize
>  bloat).

I've heard a lot of people mention filesize bloat as a (potential) problem,
but I wonder how much of a problem it really is. At least with the files I
ride herd over, I doubt that many would more than double in size -- but
then again, I'm pretty conservative with my document features, too. Given
the highly compressable nature of HTML text, as opposed to pre-compressed
graphics, this increase in size would likely be minimized by modem
compression, too.

I'm more worried about having still more links that will invariably break
than about file bloat, I guess. Also, how am I going to test each of the
different structures -- keep copies of the top five browsers for each
platform handy? Yuck! (Maybe my worry is just an artifact of the current
(lack of) automated / advanced tools?)

[...]
>Disadvantages:
>
>* Requires multiple GETs (possibly a good number of them).
[...]

This seems like a much more significant problem, especially given the
slow-start nature of TCP connections, plus the additional overhead with
older server architectures (threads vs. forks).

IMHO...

--
Blake Sobiloff                                 <bsobilof@inet.ed.gov>
Internet Systems Analyst/Webmaster         (speaking only for myself)
Decision Systems Technologies, Inc.   <http://inet.ed.gov/~bsobilof/>
Greenbelt, MD  20770  USA                             C:\ONGRTLNS.W95

Received on Monday, 29 January 1996 14:47:25 UTC