[whatwg] RWD Heaven: if browsers reported device capabilities in a request header

[Charles Pritchard]

On 2/7/2012 1:14 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>> >  Also, I am writing this on a laptop via a throttled mobile connection.
> It'd be nice if sites had the capability to adapt to that throttle
> then wouldn't it...

As I read through this thread -- all of these use cases are about bandwidth.

a) Images are too big.
b) Too many javascript files.
c) Too much html content.

The proposed fix:
a) Send a display size header, have the server do magick.

That doesn't seem to be the right approach.

Let me know if I've got that right / wrong.

I'm fine with sending a bandwidth-request header.
Something to say: hey you, I'm on a metered connection, don't waste my time.
Or just, hey, this connection is slow, give me a hand here.

That one directly addresses the issue.

On the server-side, I can decide if I want to serve downsampled images, 
lesser content
or otherwise repackage my javascript.

Nothing to do with viewport sizes.

-Charles