Re: Persistent connections: current implementations?
Steven Ball (steve@cs.anu.edu.au)
Mon, 03 Feb 1997 17:02:11 +1100
Larry Masinter wrote:
> Specific feedback on the HTTP/1.1 specification from the point of view
> of either "is it easy to understand" or "what parts are difficult to
> implement" would be really useful at this point. We're extremely
> interested in the experience of implementors.
I can't say that I've had any specific problems with the spec, but I read
it back in November and there's been Christmas in between so maybe the
Xmas BBQs and beer have clouded my memory ;-)
Getting the persistent connections right has been tricky, but that's more
to do with the code I've inherited than being caused by HTTP/1.1.
I'm only part-way through implementing the various MUSTs, so I may send
further comments in the future.
> I'm especially interested in your reaction to the various "MUST"s and
> "SHOULD"s.
I think it's very useful to have that distinction - to know what you can rely
on when a software advertises itself as being HTTP/1.1 compliant, and being
able to define a test suite. However, it does make incrementally implementing
the software difficult, since it's all-or-nothing. For example, my server
calls itself HTTP/1.1 compliant - it does do persistent connections by
default - but it is not since it does not yet understand chunked transfer
encodings.
Regards,
Steve Ball