Re: Holding connections open: an immodest proposal

Fisher Mark (FisherM@is3.indy.tce.com)
Fri, 16 Sep 94 06:27:00 PDT


First: I like Phillip Hallam-Baker's idea of MIME multipart/mixed
implemented via multiple Content-Length headers. It is clean and fast.

Secondly, the fuss about processing time for MIME using boundaries I think
is misplaced. Unless I miss my guess, the processing time constraints on
the Web are chiefly on the server side, esp. if the client sends a proper
list of Accept headers on initial requests (which does force clients that
want to save documents in client-unrecognized formats to disk to re-run the
request). On the server end, adding boundaries to MIME messages should only
take a single system call per boundary instance.
======================================================================
Mark Fisher Thomson Consumer Electronics
fisherm@indy.tce.com Indianapolis, IN

"Just as you should not underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon
traveling 65 mph filled with 8mm tapes, you should not overestimate
the bandwidth of FTP by mail."