Re: Slow HTTP Responses

Rich Wiggins (WIGGINS@msu.edu)
Thu, 13 Jan 94 17:34:25 EST


I vehemently disagree. An odometer should be a sign that some real
work is being done. Put up an hourglass if all you want to show
is "yes the client is still on a running computer but we're waiting."
Would you have "option hash" in FTP fake the fact that transfer is
taking place?

The idea seems rather nifty to me. Status might be amount of
searching accomplished instead of percent complete, for those
cases where 100% complete is not easily defined. In a fickle
network a user can benefit by noting that progress has halted
on a long request.

Maybe this is too burdensome for HTTP, maybe not. But don't do it at all
if your idea of doing it is a fake status report.

/Rich Wiggins, CWIS Coordinator, Michigan State U

>> Status: 20 % of search done
>> ... and a bit later
>> Status: 100 % done!
>
>WOW!!!!!! Does this mean that you have solved the halting problem?????
>Would you please explain how you are supposed to know what 20% done means? :-)
>
>Anyway, the point is that you could do this for timeout related functions
>but in that case you would be much better off just returning the timeout
>value to the client.
>
>The *only* useful thing you could do is print warm fuzzies, but then the
>browser could really just fake that and everyone would be happy 99% of the
>time with 1% of the effort.
>
>--sanders