Message-Id: <m0pxvSD-0004GYC@inca.gate.net>
Date: Mon, 2 May 94 06:42 EDT
To: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>
From: hoymand@gate.net (Dirk Herr-Hoyman)
Subject: Re: Possible Cool idea...
At 1:56 AM 4/30/94 -0400, Peter Deutsch wrote:
>And the quest for implementation detail continues...
>. . .
>Architecturally, if we do agree on the protocol a priori
>there is no network probe to find it (which I gather is
>what you want, yes?). If we don't, then I claim that there
>need be at most a single probe to find it, assuming it is
>not cached or otherwise available and the mechanism we
>come up with puts this info in a sensible place. That's
>all I care about, although I understand your need for more
>detail before you can code (so see my new proposal below...).
>
Even a single probe adds alot. In Mitra's SIMPLE scheme, I count 2 net
requests, 1 for the URI servers and one to get the URC. A probe here adds
another. At this point, it looks to me that most of the time will be
spents waiting for each net requests, in which case you just added 50% to
our wait. It's also a probe that's likely go out a long way (not to a
local net), adding just that much more background noise to the Net.
Of course, I'd like to see benchmarks before I believe what I am saying
:-), but I think we ought to design this as lean and mean. Think of the
worst assembler you ever had to write for and about 2K :-). Peter, if you
want to try your example "probe URN" server, do it with profiling and both
with and without it. That's the kind of evidence that would convince me
one way or the other.
At this point, I see 2 protocols worth investigating for the URI lookup,
whois++ and prospero. And in any case, this would/could/ought to be a
lightweight version. We don't want to add any more size to the clients
than need be. X Mosaic is already said to be the largest app on most folks
workstation.
-- Dirk Herr-Hoyman | CyberBeach Publishing | Practice * Internet publishing services | random acts of kindness Lake Worth, Florida, USA | and hoymand@gate.net | senseless beauty +1.407.540.8309 |