> Well, you should still send the entire document over, so network
> traffic is still the same. The browser would store the entire
> document but render it selectively. The lag time would frustrate the
> users otherwise - almost a second to open up a level of a hierarchy.
It seems to me that we should specifically be trying to find a way to
PREVENT sending the entire document over unless it is actually required
by the user. This would be a more efficient use of Net bandwidth, client
cache, and server I/O. If we think about a Web server providing a large
number of documents through with the client will browse, possibly reading
the first two or three pages of each before finding a full document that they
would require, it seems absolutely illogical to send 100% of each document,
some potentially extensive in length, when this full content is simply
not required.
The question is, do we leave it to each Web site to come up with their
own solution or do we find a standard effective way to accomplish this
through HTML or HTTP? I vote for the latter. But how would this be
best accomplished?