Subject: [hybi] design space draft

From: Jack Moffitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:09:59 -0600

I just published the initial version of the design space draft:

       Title           : Design Space for Bidirectional Protocols
       Author(s)       : J. Moffitt, et al.
       Filename        : draft-ietf-hybi-design-space-00.txt
       Pages           : 9
       Date            : 2010-06-28

This draft outlines the issues and protocols that make up the general
design area of the bi-directional web.

There are a few changes from the previous version:

* I expanded on the restrictions that browser-based clients have,
including for example the fact that JavaScript has no real ability for
working with binary as anything other than blobs.
* I filled out the security considerations section with the few things
I could think of that affect current protocols. Please let me know if
there are more that I should add.
* Most areas in the previous version that were left unfinished have
been filled in (mostly examples of the various kinds of clients).

I think it would be good to get some feedback on the restrictions
placed on the protocol due to JavaScript runtimes, as I suspect these
will be important for future discussions.

Also, Julien already pointed out to me that I am referencing the wrong
document for the WebSocket protocol. I will make sure this is
corrected in the next version.

jack.

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From: Christopher Blizzard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:12:54 -0700

> working with binary as anything other than blobs.

This is changing now.  We're starting to see browsers support binary 
data from the WebGL work and also starting to read in chunks of data 
from blobs via the File API and other interfaces.

--Chris

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From: Jack Moffitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:14:23 -0600

> This is changing now.  We're starting to see browsers support binary data
> from the WebGL work and also starting to read in chunks of data from blobs
> via the File API and other interfaces.

I did some Googling for what the current state of the art was, but I
didn't find this. Can you point me to some places where I can learn
more? I'll make sure to note that stuff in the next version of the
draft.

I did find the File API work, but that didn't seem to have anything
that would help with binary framed protocols for example.

jack.

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From: Christopher Blizzard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:29:41 -0700

> that would help with binary framed protocols for example.

Here's a post from Vlad, who works on WebGL on native arrays:

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From: Christopher Blizzard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:32:59 -0700

> that would help with binary framed protocols for example.

[ sorry, mis-send. ]

Here's a post from Vlad, who works on WebGL on the subject of native arrays:

http://blog.vlad1.com/2009/11/06/canvasarraybuffer-and-canvasarray/

Note that we're working on adding interfaces to expose this from XHR, 
Vlad has expressed interest in doing the same to the WebSocket DOM 
interfaces and we're working on one from the File API as well. 
Basically anywhere where the browser is expected to handle a big pile of 
binary data, we should probably be exposing interfaces to expose them as 
native arrays.

--Chris