5 ms·

It seems they are getting ahead of themselves...why should it be a good idea to burn the http/3 name now given the stage of development quic is in?

xori 8y ago
Names aren't sacred. Windows skipped 9 for technical reasons, iPhone skipped 9 for marketing reasons. They only people impacted by a skipped http/3 would be technical people upgrading from /2 to /4 in 5 years.
- m_eiman 8y ago
  I really, really hope we're not going to be replacing fundamental low-level infrastructure code every five years. Keep the web frontend culture contained where it is now, don't let them ruin everything else too.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Unfortunately, the low-level infrastructure of the web is now being controlled by a company which offers significant internal performance incentives for releasing new products.
    - dagenix 8y ago
      QUIC is hardly a product - very few users will ever know what it is. That Google has significant influence on internet infrastructure is hard to deny - but saying they are in control is ridiculous. And a lot of that influence comes from hiring really knowledgeable people - ignoring them just because they work for Google would be silly, especially for something like QUIC that is open and generally useful.
  - arusahni 8y ago
    I don't think of subsequent HTTP versions as replacing the previous ones - merely augmenting.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      So we'll need 3 servers instead of 1 just for serving HTTP?
      - dagenix 8y ago
        Nginx can support HTTP 1.0, 1.1, and 2 all at once. I'd suspect one day it will be able to support 3 as well. And I'd imagine that any other server software of consequence is going to as well.
        marcosdumay 8y ago
        Yes, and the more protocols running, the less likely it is to ever be replaced some day. Who has the time to write 2 (1.0 and 1.1 are basically equal) servers for a minimum package? If somebody still sold HTTP servers, I would look how this one was bribing the standardizing process. But it looks like people are doing it freely.
        dagenix 8y ago
        I really can't figure out what you are saying. I don't see any evidence of bribery. And the technologies we're talking about have pretty legitimate reasons for existing. So, ...?
- isostatic 8y ago
  > Windows skipped 9 for technical reasons Really? I thought it was because they don't plan to release another major version of windows, and wanted the number to have a nice solid "10", rather than a "9"
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    Idiots wrote code that says if osversion.startsWith('Windows 9') this is some crufty old Win9x system. To revert to the actual topic, to defend against this type of thing the QUIC binding for HTTP assigns an arbitrary non-contiguous group of identifiers as reserved to be ignored in various places, with the intent that some real systems will prod these once in a while, to discourage idiots hard-coding checks that will become obsolete.
    - SquareWheel 8y ago
      As far as I've seen, there was never any proof that Microsoft chose the Windows 10 name for that reason. I find it especially unlikely considering Vista broke even more recent compatibility.
      - jcranmer 8y ago
        My recollection is that MS did confirm that Windows 10 was chosen for some vague mention of technical reasons, which most people latched on to as being explained by the "Windows 9" check. I have seen code in the 2010s that did explicitly check for "Windows 9" as a means to check if it was running on Windows 95 or 98. That doesn't mean that the code would actually work on those systems (it could well be a prelude to saying "your system is too ancient, we don't support you"). But such kind of cruft tends to last a very, very long time without active maintenance.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Urban legend. Windows is already full of version APIs that lie to old programs. It could also format the name differently. And people like to quote broken java code, but old java would just say "Windows NT (unknown)". As a technical issue, it was small and easily avoided. It was a marketing decision.

xori 8y ago

Names aren't sacred. Windows skipped 9 for technical reasons, iPhone skipped 9 for marketing reasons. They only people impacted by a skipped http/3 would be technical people upgrading from /2 to /4 in 5 years.

m_eiman 8y ago
I really, really hope we're not going to be replacing fundamental low-level infrastructure code every five years. Keep the web frontend culture contained where it is now, don't let them ruin everything else too.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Unfortunately, the low-level infrastructure of the web is now being controlled by a company which offers significant internal performance incentives for releasing new products.
  - dagenix 8y ago
    QUIC is hardly a product - very few users will ever know what it is. That Google has significant influence on internet infrastructure is hard to deny - but saying they are in control is ridiculous. And a lot of that influence comes from hiring really knowledgeable people - ignoring them just because they work for Google would be silly, especially for something like QUIC that is open and generally useful.
- arusahni 8y ago
  I don't think of subsequent HTTP versions as replacing the previous ones - merely augmenting.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    So we'll need 3 servers instead of 1 just for serving HTTP?
    - dagenix 8y ago
      Nginx can support HTTP 1.0, 1.1, and 2 all at once. I'd suspect one day it will be able to support 3 as well. And I'd imagine that any other server software of consequence is going to as well.
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        Yes, and the more protocols running, the less likely it is to ever be replaced some day. Who has the time to write 2 (1.0 and 1.1 are basically equal) servers for a minimum package? If somebody still sold HTTP servers, I would look how this one was bribing the standardizing process. But it looks like people are doing it freely.
        dagenix 8y ago
        I really can't figure out what you are saying. I don't see any evidence of bribery. And the technologies we're talking about have pretty legitimate reasons for existing. So, ...?
isostatic 8y ago
> Windows skipped 9 for technical reasons Really? I thought it was because they don't plan to release another major version of windows, and wanted the number to have a nice solid "10", rather than a "9"
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Idiots wrote code that says if osversion.startsWith('Windows 9') this is some crufty old Win9x system. To revert to the actual topic, to defend against this type of thing the QUIC binding for HTTP assigns an arbitrary non-contiguous group of identifiers as reserved to be ignored in various places, with the intent that some real systems will prod these once in a while, to discourage idiots hard-coding checks that will become obsolete.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    As far as I've seen, there was never any proof that Microsoft chose the Windows 10 name for that reason. I find it especially unlikely considering Vista broke even more recent compatibility.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      My recollection is that MS did confirm that Windows 10 was chosen for some vague mention of technical reasons, which most people latched on to as being explained by the "Windows 9" check. I have seen code in the 2010s that did explicitly check for "Windows 9" as a means to check if it was running on Windows 95 or 98. That doesn't mean that the code would actually work on those systems (it could well be a prelude to saying "your system is too ancient, we don't support you"). But such kind of cruft tends to last a very, very long time without active maintenance.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Urban legend. Windows is already full of version APIs that lie to old programs. It could also format the name differently. And people like to quote broken java code, but old java would just say "Windows NT (unknown)". As a technical issue, it was small and easily avoided. It was a marketing decision.