[whatwg] WebSocket support in HTML5

[Richard's Hotmail]

Hi David,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ddailey" <ddailey at zoominternet.net>
To: "Richard's Hotmail" <maher_rj at hotmail.com>; <whatwg at whatwg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: [whatwg] WebSocket support in HTML5


> Hi Richard,
>
> My apologies for getting involved in a topic I confess to knowing very
> little about (though I would like to be able to have direct
client-to-client
> communication for a variety of purposes including gaming and social
> networking), but it seems like the question here is "what does the
approach
> you are advocating enable that the approach on the table doesn't do?"

The easiest way to do that is to point you towards the BSD Socket
documentation or, in the case of browser-based functionality, go to
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/index.html and look up
java.net.Socket. Now, you might like to sit there and ask me to justify the
need or desirability for each and every attribute and method, but then you'd
problably also claim that "AJAX long-polling does everything we need already
so why bother with sockets anyway"?

Connection Timeouts? Read Timeouts? KeepAlive? NoDelay? Peeking?

Perhaps - "Well we do that sort of stuff with HTTP headers, so there!"?

> I
> understand that you are saying the approach WHATWG and HTML5 WG have
> undertaken is flawed (and I acknowledge your claim that lots of folks are
> doing it better), but I really don't see what you are hoping to do that
> these folks (whose expertise in such matters I would certainly be willing
to
> defer to) will not enable?

I am just asking why Sockets are being re-invented for html5, and  in such a
restricted and watered-down fashion. If you guys/gals really like to build
an integer 7 bits at a time or "frame" UTF-8 then more power to you; just
please stop forcing every one else to perfoem the same contortions. Please
gives us a normal a Socket (UDP and Multicast too please) Subject it to
same-origin policy or whatever else is reqd.

There are Intranets and IPsec and all sorts of configurations that lend
themselves to just such functionality. But you say "It's fine for gaming"
others say "It's just fine for chat" what else could there be eh?

> Are you claiming, for example,  that HTTP
> roundtrips from a server to each client will be intrinsically too slow to
> support such applications as gaming?

It's up to others to define "too slow" for their own applications. (But the
amount of meta-data crud travelling around these days with HTTP and XML et
al could certainly be classified as sub-optimal :-)

> If so, then it would seem that would be
> a concrete complaint that the advocates of the current proposal could, in
> theory, respond to. The history of the discussion referred to by the link,
> indicates that as James says, the current proposal has undergone numerous
> revisions based on input.

I'm sure a lot of (perhaps too narrowly) focused people have put in a heap
of work on this, but does no one else question how these people could have
come up with a solution that differs so greatly from the approach taken by
SUN/Java, Adobe/Flex, and Microsoft Silverlight?

"Aristotle, Plato, Socrates - Morons!" :-)

Please make it a broader church, and not just for the Internet denominations
of gaming and chat.

> Perhaps since you obviously care so much about it,
> you can help the proposal to evolve into something which addresses your
> concerns.
>
> Just the observation of a naive onlooker.
>
> cheers
> David
>

Cheers Richard Maher

>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Richard's Hotmail" <maher_rj at hotmail.com>
> To: <whatwg at whatwg.org>
> Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 9:58 AM
> Subject: Re: [whatwg] WebSocket support in HTML5
>
>
> > Hi James,
> >
> > Thanks for the reply.
> >>
> >> [1]
> >
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2008-July/015252.html
> >
> > My appologies for only having read the first ten years of that thread
:-)
> >
> > Look, I'm not sure exactly what problem you guys are solving with
HTML5's
> > WebSockets but I wish you well. What I and *many* others are looking for
> > is
> > native JavaScript support for Sockets  a la mode de (SUN Java Applets +
> > Adobe Flex + MIcrosoft Silverlight) that for some strange reason don't
> > seem
> > to be subject to the same imaginary obstacles that are being discussed
in
> > that thread. Please explain what security vulnerabilities et al that
> > Adobe,
> > SUN and Microsoft have foisted upon us that the HTML5 people wish to
spare
> > us from.
> >
> > If you guys live in a world where nothing but port 80 exists and no one
> > with
> > ever want UDP datagrams (let alone Multicast messages) to their web
> > clients
> > then I have come to the wrong place :-(
> >
> > What goes up and down the network connection is our business not yours.
No
> > more bollocks protocols!
> >
> > As I said in the previous post, if you guys want to put a "Frame me like
> > ASCII" contortion interface/API on top of the JavaScript Sockets
(similar
> > to
> > SOAP on HTTP) then go crazy; just don't try to shackle everyone else
with
> > the same restrictions.
> >
> > Please see the following for examples of what I am talking about: -
> >
> > http://manson.vistech.net/t3$examples/demo_client_flex.html
> > http://manson.vistech.net/t3$examples/demo_client_web.html
> >
> > In both cases the Username is TIER3_DEMO and the password is QUEUE.
> >
> > Obviously, you can "view source" for the HTML and Javascript and the
Java
> > Applet and MXML source can be found at
> > http://manson.vistech.net/t3$examples/
> >
> > Once again, you are not introducing something new, but you *are*
> > attempting
> > to introduce support for a tried and tested architecture and you are
> > getting
> > it hopelessly wrong :-(
> >
> > Cheers Richard Maher
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "James Graham" <jg307 at cam.ac.uk>
> > To: "Richard's Hotmail" <maher_rj at hotmail.com>
> > Cc: <whatwg at whatwg.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 8:46 PM
> > Subject: Re: [whatwg] WebSocket support in HTML5
> >
> >
> >> Richard's Hotmail wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> > I've been told that this is the correct forum for lobbying/venting
> >> > about
> >> > html5 changes; I hope that this is correct?
> >>
> >> Er, I think it is the correct forum for discussing the spec. I'm less
> >> sure
> > that
> >> lobbying/venting are useful forms of discussion.
> >>
> >> > My particular beef is with the intended WebSocket support, and
> > specifically
> >> > the restrictive nature of its implementation. I respectfully, yet
> > forcefully,
> >> >  suggest that the intended implementation is complete crap and you'd
do
> >> > better to look at existing Socket support from SUN Java, Adobe Flex,
> >> > and
> >> > Microsoft Silverlight before engraving anything into stone!
> >>
> >> Nothing is engraved into stone, at least until browsers ship something
> >> and
> > are
> >> unable to change it because it would adversely affect their
marketshare.
> > As far
> >> as I am aware there are currently no browser-based implementations of
> >> WebSockets, so it is relatively easy to make changes.
> >>
> >> > What we need (and is a really great idea) is native HTML/JavaScript
> > support
> >> > for Sockets - What we don't need is someone re-inventing sockets 'cos
> > they think
> >> > they can do it better.
> >>
> >> You might find [1] helpful for understanding the rationale behind the
> > current
> >> WebSockets spec. If you have use cases that cannot be met with the
> >> current
> >> design, it would be helpful if you could explain the use case and how
you
> > can
> >> deal with the security issues identified in that email.
> >>
> >> [1]
> >
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2008-July/015252.html
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> "Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
> >>   -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
>