Re: Session-Id

www-talk-request@w3.org
Sat, 22 Jul 95 03:04:06 PDT


pitkow@cc.gatech.edu (James Pitkow) writes:
> > Moreover, client generated ids may not be unique.
> > Two independent clients could generate the same id and
> > confuse the server.
>
> My calculations lead me to think differently.
...
> Further more, the generation of unique ids on the server
> side means that some shared memory is used, which means
> locking, which means blocking.

As John also tried to explain, these are non-problems. The server
can just use a persistent counter with enough bits to be unique for
a few millennia (64 bits would more than suffice at your hit rate),
and then allocate these values to the individual server threads in
blocks large enough that synchronization overhead becomes
irrelevant.

My objections to session-ID are more fundamental. I feel we are
about to create a crippled mini-HTTP-within-HTTP for special "small"
objects stuffed into HTTP headers. I will try to put together an
alternate proposal based on HTTP's exisiting Link: capability.

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Paul Burchard <burchard@math.utah.edu>
``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...''
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