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Um, What? HTTP is a transport. And last I checked, the web is the worlds largest distributed application... connected by... HTTP! On top of that, virtually ever
by siculars 14y ago
Um, What? HTTP is a transport. And last I checked, the web is the worlds largest distributed application... connected by... HTTP! On top of that, virtually every language has excellent HTTP libraries. There is little and less to gain by using something new or unique at this layer of the application. Using HTTP jump starts the dialogue to the next level by not reinventing the wheel and being mired in endless technical protocol discussion that does not forward the functionality of the platform.
- joshaidan 14y agoYes, all valid points. And yes, particularly as a transport protocol it would, like other protocols lead to decentralized services. But perhaps I should clarify a bit and say that, HTML and the web browser have led the Internet into a place with lots of centralized services. If we see HTTP as a transport protocol like UDP or TCP, then yes you're very right. But if we look at HTML and web browsers becoming denominate applications of the Internet, then I believe that's how a lot of this centralization happened. If you look at the web as a series of servers, sure it's decentralized. But contained on those servers are a lot of centralized services, i.e. Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- 18pfsmt 14y agoYou should check out buddycloud.org. I'm not in any way connected to it, but I saw it mentioned on HN a couple months back. It is based on XMPP for the backend, but the documentation indicates a webclient, as well as mobile clients. Their documentation seems quite extensive and it was part of Google Summer of Code this past summer. I'd be interested in hearing other people's take unless it involves "XMPP is too complicated."
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoI don't follow how HTML leads to centralized services. Explanation?