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From: andy@gently.demon.co.uk (Andy Hawkins)
Newsgroups: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Batch FTP and Web Pages
Date: 30 Jun 1996 09:39:23 GMT
Organization: home near Swindon
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <slrn4tciqa.6d.andy@gently.demon.co.uk>
References: <31c2e7bd.14691630@news.demon.co.uk> <834878464snz@pair.com> <834921960snz@michaels.demon.co.uk> <835206024.5881.2@diltd.demon.co.uk> <slrn4sgtd6.ds.dom@myrddin.demon.co.uk> <835294223.22071.1@diltd.demon.co.uk> <slrn4sjj16.cs.dom@myrddin.demon.co.uk> <199606261821.SAA02204@mauve.demon.co.uk> <4qtcee$n1h@alfie.demon.co.uk> <31D42221.58C3@www.play-hookey.com> <slrn4t9u0r.vj.andy@gently.demon.co.uk> <31D4AA3A.BC0@www.play-hookey.com>
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In article <31D4AA3A.BC0@www.play-hookey.com>, you wrote:
>Andy Hawkins wrote:
>>
>> In article <31D42221.58C3@www.play-hookey.com>,
>> Ken Bigelow<kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> wrote:
>> >The problem with that idea is that a Web page is not a single file. The
>> >main HTML document is (usually) not that big, and consists entirely of
>> >ASCII text.
>>
>> That's not the point (AIUI). This service would be useful for places that
>> only offer binaries on web pages, not on an ftp server. In general, the
>> delay waiting for a page to load is not to bad, but when you're trying to
>> download a 2Mb zip file that isn't on an ftp server at 200 bytes/sec, then
>> you could be there a while.
>>
>> If you could request this using some batch http service then you wouldn't
>> have to sit online waiting.
>
>True enough. However, I submit that anyone offering such binaries *only* via
>http is subverting the whole purpose of http. Please recall that "http" means
>"HyperText Transport Protocol." Its whole purpose is for Web pages.
>
>It is not reasonable to ask that the whole operation of http be changed just
>because a few people cannot or will not allow ftp access to those few files
>they want to make available.
We're not trying to alter the operation of HTTP, in the same way as the
batch FTP service demon already provide doesn't alter the operation of FTP.
We're merely talking about a (useful) extension that demon could provide to
reduce all our phone bills.
>If you have a connection limited to 200 b/s, why not make the connection, start
>the download, and then go to bed? Most dialers (Trumpet Winsock, the user PPP
>program in FreeBSD, etc.) can have an inactivity timeout so that the connection
>will shut down 5 minutes (or whatever) after the transfer ends, so connection
>time should not be a problem.
Agreed, I use diald under Linux, which does demand dialling. However, the
phone bill problem still applies. Why spend and hour downloading 1 meg when
(for example) you could get it in around 10 minutes from demon's ftp site
after they've downloaded it for you.
>I'm not saying a reget capability wouldn't be handy in these circumstances, but
>I think the demand is so slight that there is no serious call to make the
>change. Certainly I wouldn't care to upsize my own httpd server that way -- but
>then I don't have any files to download from here, and don't intend to.
We're not talking about a mod to the server (or rather, we weren't
originally <g>). The subject of this thread is 'Batch FTP and Web Pages',
although it does seem to have drifted from there.
Andy
--
Andy Hawkins aka Chopper http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~andyh
adhawkins@iee.org