Re: HTTP2 spec

marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 11:00:21 -0800
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9301051900.AA26283@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: Dave_Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Re: HTTP2 spec
In-reply-to: <9301041411.AA08999@manuel.hpl.hp.com>
References: <9301041411.AA08999@manuel.hpl.hp.com>
Dave_Raggett writes:
> I hope to give more detailed feedback soon, but an immediate suggestion is
> to include a size field giving the number of bytes in the complete message
> (or an estimate). This would allow the browser to show a gauge indicating
> how much of the message has been received at any time (I want to temporarily
> replace the vertical scroll bar by a bas-relief thermometer). The gauge
> would only be shown if this size field is present.

I agree; a size field is almost essential -- particularly considering
how big hypermedia documents are going to get.

> My suggestion is that part of the message header is sent before beginning
> the document conversion (or whatever). The remainder and the document body
> content is sent later. The part of the header sent earlier on includes a
> processing attribute, e.g. "Processing: converting to html ..."

Another possibility for increased ergonomics is to provide for the
transfer of the first several paragraphs of a large document prior to
transfer of the rest of the document, so the use has something to look
at while the bulk of the communication is taking place.

Cheers,
Marc