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Pretty much every device is mobile now. For example, people will probably start reading emails on the center console of their autonomous cars on the way to work

Pretty much every device is mobile now. For example, people will probably start reading emails on the center console of their autonomous cars on the way to work over 5G. Nevertheless, a valid current-day example for non-mobile devices requiring a tolerance to dropped connections: I regularly dock and undock my laptop when heading to meeting rooms, and simply switching from docked Ethernet to WiFi causes a network switch that breaks a lot of apps. Engineering tolerance for this kind of thing is only good.

superkuh 4y ago
Yes. That's reality. Most devices people use are terrible, terrible computers and they can't do what computers used to be able to do. This is a bad thing.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Users don't care what you consider to be a good computer. They use the proprietary email provider and it just works and shows emails on their car. While FOSS fanboys are sitting around complaining about the decay of tech because of JSON protocols.
- gregmac 4y ago
  Honestly this sounds like a "if your computer weighs less than 5 tons and can fit on a desk, it's not a real computer" argument someone would have made 30 years ago. Reality is people use multiple different and mobile devices, roam across connections, and intermittently go offline. Building software and protocols that are designed around this is beneficial to every use case - even those using whatever you consider a non-"terrible computer" to be.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    I don't believe you really think that. Not being able to keep a TCP connection open is not some trivial aesthetic or nostalgic issue. Pretty much all information transfer on the internet is over TCP.
    - gregmac 4y ago
      What the OP was talking about, which I totally agree with, is protocols that can't tolerate interruptions to their connection. This can be done with TCP. When I worked in an office, I had the same issue as the OP - docking/undocking my laptop resulted in switching from wired to wireless, and connections (eg: SSH, RDP) would often drop. I ended up unplugging the ethernet at my desk and using wireless most of the time because it was just easier. What would help is protocols actually support the concept of a "reconnection" -- ie: a TCP session that has the same identifier or token as a previous one that lets it it silently resume instead of starting fresh with new authentication. This isn't even that hard to implement if designed in from the start.

superkuh 4y ago

Yes. That's reality. Most devices people use are terrible, terrible computers and they can't do what computers used to be able to do. This is a bad thing.

Gigachad 4y ago
Users don't care what you consider to be a good computer. They use the proprietary email provider and it just works and shows emails on their car. While FOSS fanboys are sitting around complaining about the decay of tech because of JSON protocols.
gregmac 4y ago
Honestly this sounds like a "if your computer weighs less than 5 tons and can fit on a desk, it's not a real computer" argument someone would have made 30 years ago. Reality is people use multiple different and mobile devices, roam across connections, and intermittently go offline. Building software and protocols that are designed around this is beneficial to every use case - even those using whatever you consider a non-"terrible computer" to be.
- superkuh 4y ago
  I don't believe you really think that. Not being able to keep a TCP connection open is not some trivial aesthetic or nostalgic issue. Pretty much all information transfer on the internet is over TCP.
  - gregmac 4y ago
    What the OP was talking about, which I totally agree with, is protocols that can't tolerate interruptions to their connection. This can be done with TCP. When I worked in an office, I had the same issue as the OP - docking/undocking my laptop resulted in switching from wired to wireless, and connections (eg: SSH, RDP) would often drop. I ended up unplugging the ethernet at my desk and using wireless most of the time because it was just easier. What would help is protocols actually support the concept of a "reconnection" -- ie: a TCP session that has the same identifier or token as a previous one that lets it it silently resume instead of starting fresh with new authentication. This isn't even that hard to implement if designed in from the start.