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#! rnews 2874 bsd Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!hunter.premier.net!news1.erols.com!newsmaster@erols.com From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> Newsgroups: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Batch FTP and Web Pages Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 20:59:54 -0700 Organization: Erols Internet Services Lines: 37 Message-ID: <31D4AA3A.BC0@www.play-hookey.com> References: <31c2e7bd.14691630@news.demon.co.uk> <834878464snz@pair.com> <834921960snz@michaels.demon.co.uk> <835206024.5881.2@diltd.demon.co.uk> <slrn4sgtd6.ds.dom@myrddin.demon.co.uk> <835294223.22071.1@diltd.demon.co.uk> <slrn4sjj16.cs.dom@myrddin.demon.co.uk> <199606261821.SAA02204@mauve.demon.co.uk> <4qtcee$n1h@alfie.demon.co.uk> <31D42221.58C3@www.play-hookey.com> <slrn4t9u0r.vj.andy@gently.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I) Andy Hawkins wrote: > > In article <31D42221.58C3@www.play-hookey.com>, > Ken Bigelow<kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> wrote: > >The problem with that idea is that a Web page is not a single file. The > >main HTML document is (usually) not that big, and consists entirely of > >ASCII text. > > That's not the point (AIUI). This service would be useful for places that > only offer binaries on web pages, not on an ftp server. In general, the > delay waiting for a page to load is not to bad, but when you're trying to > download a 2Mb zip file that isn't on an ftp server at 200 bytes/sec, then > you could be there a while. > > If you could request this using some batch http service then you wouldn't > have to sit online waiting. True enough. However, I submit that anyone offering such binaries *only* via http is subverting the whole purpose of http. Please recall that "http" means "HyperText Transport Protocol." Its whole purpose is for Web pages. It is not reasonable to ask that the whole operation of http be changed just because a few people cannot or will not allow ftp access to those few files they want to make available. If you have a connection limited to 200 b/s, why not make the connection, start the download, and then go to bed? Most dialers (Trumpet Winsock, the user PPP program in FreeBSD, etc.) can have an inactivity timeout so that the connection will shut down 5 minutes (or whatever) after the transfer ends, so connection time should not be a problem. I'm not saying a reget capability wouldn't be handy in these circumstances, but I think the demand is so slight that there is no serious call to make the change. Certainly I wouldn't care to upsize my own httpd server that way -- but then I don't have any files to download from here, and don't intend to. Ken