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A New Definition of HTTP (mnot.net)
40 points by ingve on June 6, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments


Leading off with a glib remark, but: now that HTTP is no longer a transport protocol (QUIC is), do we have to rename it? :)

Seriously, as I said in the RFC9114/HTTP3 spec[1] submission, it's so cool to have this split.

QUIC is so capable, such a neat set of ideas for a transport (although I have some deep laments about it being woefully anti-extensible[2]; to use QUIC you essentially have to fork it & start your own new protocol). That HTTP can express itself in terms of another spec is one of the most compelling, longest-hardest won & best victories for "abstraction" (or layering) that computing has seen.

That we'll be able to iterate on HTTP in new ways, by having a common semantic base, keeps the future open & iterable. (e.g.: HTTP over PCIe? Why not!) Huge wins.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31647033

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31402311


Well, HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, not Transport Protocol.


/bonk self. Thanks!


QUIC is Google's child. Just like AMP.


QUIC started off as Google's child, but IETF QUIC is a different beast than Google's original proposal for QUIC.


Please don't have such an oversimplistic, biased view. It's not healthy nor useful.


> However, I believe that when a protocol is important as HTTP, it needs constant maintenance and documentation improvements

He forgot a new incompatible library with every release. And releases every month. And, and, and ... Why the SW world must always burn the old house before building a new one ?


Yesterday I fired up the latest release of netscape navigator, and I could search for things on google just fine, using the HTTP protocol, but couldn't read any of the f...king results because idiot webservers don't support HTTP anymore..


It's for your protection. Besides Google, some 3 letter agencies and some Google customers noone else knows what you're searching for.


> It's for your protection.

I feel like this kind of reasoning have been used previously to take away freedom.. I'm all for encryption, but I'm not for using force. Give me plaintext HTTP and websafe colors, or give me death!




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