Subject: [mmox] reverse http RFC

From: Lawson English <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:25:35 -0700

Hey grats to Zero Linden (Mark Lentczner) and Donovan Preston  for 
getting this out. Will make virtual worlds communication much more 
robust in the long run, I think:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-lentczner-rhttp-00.txt

Lawson

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From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 13:49:45 +0000

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Lawson English <[email-masked]> wrote:

Hey grats to Zero Linden (Mark Lentczner) and Donovan Preston  for getting
> this out. Will make virtual worlds communication much more robust in the
> long run, I think:
>
>
I agree.  This would be a very good thing for the downlink path of
client-server systems, which includes those where the "server" is a P2P peer
--- it provides great symmetry, and avoids the proliferation of random hacks
to overcome the problems associated with incoming connections to clients.
Reverse HTTP is not a hack, because everything that applied previously to
(forward) HTTP then becomes available in the reverse direction, so it's
beautifully elegant and powerful.  That's good progress.

OGP is currently tied to the specific technology of long poll (in 3
different paragraphs of the current draft), which is inappropriately
proscriptive.  This is one area that needs to be widenened for future draft
iterations, so that techniques like Reverse HTTP can be employed, as well as
streamed response and other more efficient mechanisms for state transfer.

Morgaine.

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Lawson English <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hey grats to Zero Linden (Mark Lentczner) and Donovan Preston  for getting
> this out. Will make virtual worlds communication much more robust in the
> long run, I think:
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mmox mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mmox
>

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From: Christian Scholz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:56:53 +0100

> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-lentczner-rhttp-00.txt

And the discussion about it on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/82ws0/reverse_http/

-- Christian

-- 
Christian Scholz
Blog: http://mrtopf.de/blog
Company: http://comlounge.net
Podcasts: http://datawithoutborders.net, http://openweb-podcast.de

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From: Jon Watte <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:29:01 -0700

Morgaine wrote:
> client-server systems, which includes those where the "server" is a 
> P2P peer --- it provides great symmetry, and avoids the proliferation 
> of random hacks to overcome the problems associated with incoming 
> connections to clients.  Reverse HTTP is not a hack, because 
> everything that applied previously to (forward) HTTP then becomes 
> available in the reverse direction, so it's beautifully elegant and 
> powerful.  That's good progress.

For clarification: If I need to exchange messages both directions, do I 
open two connections, one of which I reverse, or do I keep sending 
Upgrade: headers with each request to switch direction each time?

Sincerely,

jw

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From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 20:25:25 +0000

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Jon Watte <[email-masked]> wrote:

> open two connections, one of which I reverse, or do I keep sending Upgrade:
> headers with each request to switch direction each time?
>

Reverse HTTP is unrelated to / does not specify the number of connections
between communicating parties nor the semantics of communications, beyond
those of HTTP.

It is simply a mechanism for decoupling the client->server relationship
under which a given TCP stream was opened from the client->server
relationship in the HTTP protocol that uses that stream.

Morgaine.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Jon Watte <[email-masked]> wrote:

> open two connections, one of which I reverse, or do I keep sending Upgrade:
> headers with each request to switch direction each time?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> jw
>
>

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From: Jon Watte <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:58:05 -0700

Morgaine wrote:
>
> Reverse HTTP is unrelated to / does not specify the number of 
> connections between communicating parties nor the semantics of 
> communications, beyond those of HTTP.

Actually, on re-reading the RFC, it does specify that the intended usage 
is to open two connections, one of which becomes reversed. Question 
answered.

Sincerely,

jw