Second time I run into a developer on itch.io who doesn't know what a #web server is and thinks they need to code a #NodeJS app to serve static files.
This is terrifying. It's the future Google wants to build, with their HTTP 2.0 and Wasm: a future when even the basics are horribly hard and not even developers know how the web works because it's all a black box.
I'm begging you: fight this. Educate people. Don't let openness die.
@notimetoplay So-called "HTTP 2" is /not HTTP/ and I will die on this hill!!
@silverwizard @IceWolf That was no typo. HTTP 2 is binary. It can no longer be used in trivial ways.
@silverwizard @IceWolf Sure, if you're a pro web developer with the time and energy to dig. If it was like that in 1999, Google wouldn't exist. This is called "pulling the ladder up after you got on top".
@notimetoplay @silverwizard @IceWolf i mean, just import libcurl. you don't implement tcp yourself so i don't see using a HTTP library that will likely be 100x better than whatever you will write isn't too offensive
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard You're missing the point.
The point is that with text protocols, you don't HAVE to use a thing somebody else already wrote.
And besides, someone had to write libcurl in the first place.
Binary just makes shit difficult for literally no reason.
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard yes. someone who can dedicate a lot of time can do the work of writing a good HTTP client.
H2/3 are remarkably faster than H1
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard "Faster"? Meh. Not by any metric that matters.
Plain text worked in 1990 and it still works now.
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard If you want to make your site faster, don't rewrite fucking HTTP, just use less ads and random cruft.
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard well we both know that's not happening, and H2 already exists, so why not use it. Not like H1 is going anywhere anyway 🤷
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard For NOW.
What d'you think Google's plan is? Real HTTP is probably going to get "deprecated" once "everyone's on things that support HTTP 2 anyway".
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard ???????????????
You are aware the internet is decentralised? Like, Google doesn't run the entire internet. The current version for the H2 spec wasnt even authored by anyone at Google. It was Mozilla & Apple.
@tay @IceWolf @silverwizard Yes, that's what bothers them, so they're trying to snuff out all that openness.
@notimetoplay @IceWolf @silverwizard i literally have RFC 9113 open on the computer in front of me it's hardly closed
@tay @IceWolf @silverwizard Yes, for now. Yet here you are advocating for a future where we all use premade stuff exclusively.
@notimetoplay @IceWolf @silverwizard i'm sure you sent this message from your own ISA, running your own OS, running your own network stack, running your own client talking to your own activity pub server
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard Ah yes, because "only premade stuff is feasible" and "EVERYTHING built from scratch down to the hardware" are the only two options.
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard Premade stuff is good. Being able to tinker is ALSO good. They're not mutually exclusive.
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard you can still write your own H2 server. it might be more work, but a basic implementation shouldn't be too much harder (i haven't read the spec so don't quote me on that)
and if you don't want to, just write a H1 server. that is going to go away approximately never
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard
– It's pointless work that /shouldn't be there/ and /doesn't have to be there/. We already have a perfectly working stack from before Google started fucking with everything.
– I don't fucking trust "but it'll stick around!".
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard i still have no clue where this idea that H2 is a conspiracy invented by google to sell more whatever their business and is
it exists because a plain text format is inherently slow.
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard A plain text format is not inherently slow! If it was slow, they wouldn't have been using it on much-much-less-powerful 1990s computers!
And considering Google is also trying to do this with literally everything else from TCP to image formats...
(video gets a bit of a pass, but only because Fucking Software Patents; they don't have that excuse for images)
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard i'm sure they're going to put ads in the HTTP 2 handshake and you're going to be so right
@IceWolf @notimetoplay @silverwizard why do you think specifically google is doing this? not like, the entire industry
@tay @notimetoplay
*points paw at QUIC*
*points paw at WebP*
(untagging silverwizard because This Got Long)
@IceWolf @notimetoplay webp isn't http2 try again
@tay @notimetoplay Of COURSE it's not HTTP2, that's not what I'm saying.
It's a similar attempt to replace the perfectly good existing standard formats with something Google cooked up.
@tay @notimetoplay ...and why am I even debating you anyway? This is going nowhere.
Like, before now it could be excused as a regular argument, now it feels like you're just trolling.
@tay @notimetoplay But also, even if it is the entire industry in general, that doesn't really make it any better.
We have a completely working, reasonably efficient, /approachable/ stack of things that Google/whoever want to completely throw out and replace with opaque blobs because "oh it makes things 0.2% faster" and they don't care about community, they don't care about tinkerability, they don't care about /people/.
@IceWolf @notimetoplay even on a decent connection, H2 can be a almost 50% speed improvement ( https://css-tricks.com/http2-real-world-performance-test-analysis/)
and even if it's not faster in raw bandwidth, when your connection looks like this, you really appreciate being able to send resources in parallel rather than serial.
a BBC news article in 2010 was 338kb, today it's around 9.3mb.
my mobile data connection wasn't much slower back then than it regularly dips to today
@tay @notimetoplay @silverwizard Like, I don't know what their eventual business-model plan is either, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna trust them about it.