Jeff Hodges wrote:
To throw another set of ideas into the hat, SPDY[1][2] would be good
to learn from. SPDY takes the basics of HTTP and makes them fast.
Benefits we would enjoy include:
* Multiplexed streams
* Request prioritization
* HTTP header compression
* Server push
Currently in draft form.
[1] http://dev.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper
[2] http://dev.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-protocol/spdy-protocol-draft2
I like that SPDY is more actively developed than BEEP. It would be nice
not to have to re-implement clients and servers from scratch, and to
perhaps even use a pre-existing specfication.
SPDY does fix one of the primary restrictions of HTTP in that it permits
request multiplexing: responses need not arrive in order.
However other concerns folks have had about HTTP are that:
a. text headers are big and slow to process
b. SSL/TLS is heavyweight and inflexible for authentication
SPDY addresses the size of headers by compressing them, but that may
hinder the speed of header processing.
SPDY uses SSL/TLS, so would have the same issues there. Perhaps they
could be convinced to adopt SASL instead of TLS?
Doug
