At 02:44 PM 9/10/2001, Christian Huitema wrote:
Frankly, I don't see what the "abstraction of the transport layer"
provides you.
Perhaps it is noteworthy that a number of folks, including ADs, who have
long history working in the application layer, think that the benefits are
significant.
In any event, the list of BEEP features is straightforward and well
documented. They were pursued and standardized through the usual IETF
mechanism. I was not the most ardent participant in the working group, but
I do not remember your concerns being raised -- or, least, gaining any
traction -- in the working group discussion.
And in any further event, BEEP is standards track and debating BEEP is not
the current topic.
If you are saying that we should allow reuse of the TCP connection for
multiple SOAP messages, that is fine. But BEEP is hardly the only way to
achieve that.
Please point to other standards that achieve that functionality and have
support for use. (Working code would also be good to know about.)
Well, HTTP has at least the benefit of being widely implemented and widely
used. That is not the case for BEEP.
Wow. That IS significant.
Isn't it interesting how protocols that have existed for 10 years tend to
have broader deployment than protocols that have existed for less than one?
Perhaps one should note that problems in using HTTP as a generic
application layer protocol was one of the motivations for creating BEEP...
I personally find BEEP quite atrocious. It introduces a "channel"
artifact that is gratuitous complexity; it breaks at least one
fundamental rule of networking, by allowing for multiplexing on top of TCP.
Christian, perhaps you are forgetting that having multiple, related data
streams use multiple, independent TCP connections is a problem, not a
feature? Hence there needs to be multiplexing on top of TCP.
And your knowledge about fundamental networking rules has demonstrated a
significant disparity from the knowledge of quite a few other folks. Any
literature references to this fundamental rule would be appreciated.
d/
----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dcrocker(_at_)brandenburg(_dot_)com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.273.6464