http://www.w3schools.com/webservices/ws_intro.asp

"The HTTP protocol is the most used Internet protocol."

Uh... surely IP is "the most used Internet protocol", no? :-P

Perhaps you meant "the most used application-level protocol"? (Even them 
I rather doubt it's correct. Surely SMTP dwarfs it...)

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Invisible wrote:
> http://www.w3schools.com/webservices/ws_intro.asp
> 
> "The HTTP protocol is the most used Internet protocol."
> 
> Uh... surely IP is "the most used Internet protocol", no? :-P
> 
> Perhaps you meant "the most used application-level protocol"? (Even them 
> I rather doubt it's correct. Surely SMTP dwarfs it...)

Not so sure about that, HTTP is used for lots of things nowadays, not 
just browsing web pages. RSS Feeds, Client/Server applications, etc ..

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Not so sure about that, HTTP is used for lots of things nowadays, not 
> just browsing web pages. RSS Feeds, Client/Server applications, etc ..

I'll go with "HTTP is the most misused app-level protocol." ;-)

I suspect SMTP still outweighs it, tho. And of course telephone dwarfs 
internet as well.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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Darren New wrote:

> 
> I'll go with "HTTP is the most misused app-level protocol." ;-)
> 

Heh, very true. How did the idea "Hey, lets make this API available on 
an http service" get started anyway?

> I suspect SMTP still outweighs it, tho. And of course telephone dwarfs 
> internet as well.
> 

Possibly. If you include the spammers, then it is by a long shot.

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Heh, very true. How did the idea "Hey, lets make this API available on 
> an http service" get started anyway?

Because people wanted to push their crap at you through a firewall without 
you needing to get corporate approval for a new hole. The same reason java 
class files are officially served as the MIME type for "we haven't 
configured the server for java class files".

> Possibly. 

It certainly was, by about 5:1, maybe 5 years ago.

And in 1992 or so, the USA phone company's traffic on Mother's Day carried 
more bits than an entire year's worth of internet backbone traffic.

Of course, stuff changes fast, with web mail and VoIP and cell phones and 
such, so it's hard to say how much that counts nowadays.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> Heh, very true. How did the idea "Hey, lets make this API available on 
> an http service" get started anyway?

As far as I can tell, it began with Hotmail. "Hey, let's make it so you 
can run your email program from anywhere! Because everybody has a web 
browser." After that, all sorts of ways of raping HTTP and HTML were 
invented...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
> 
>> Heh, very true. How did the idea "Hey, lets make this API available on 
>> an http service" get started anyway?
> 
> As far as I can tell, it began with Hotmail.

Nah. The first big one I remember is "pointcast", which isn't around any 
more, which goes to show. There were also a number of MMORPH-predecessors 
that went with the "they can't play the game at work if we don't run it over 
port 80."   It was a particularly annoying meme, particularly because the 
point of the firewall is to keep your application from running rampant 
behind the firewall.  It forced people to start making smarter and smarter 
firewalls just to distinguish what you're doing, and then actually looking 
into the body of data to see what kind of "I don't know what this is" that's 
being served to tell if it's a virus or an inappropriate executable or just 
some Sun java BS.

I wouldn't even say webmail is "raping" HTTP. Misusing it for full 
application interfaces, perhaps, but at least you're actually transferring 
hypertext. :-)  But you need to already have ubiquitous web browsers before 
you base an interface decision on the fact that everyone has web browsers. 
My only annoyance with HTTP for full applications is that it was never 
really intended for anything like that, and there were all kinds of much 
better solutions already out there, but those better solutions required 
people using them to actually learn something instead of hacking together a 
half-assed product and throwing it out there, so we got stuff like we have 
now instead of something usable.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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Darren New wrote:

> My only annoyance with HTTP for full applications is 
> that it was never really intended for anything like that, and there were 
> all kinds of much better solutions already out there, but those better 
> solutions required people using them to actually learn something instead 
> of hacking together a half-assed product and throwing it out there, so 
> we got stuff like we have now instead of something usable.

Er, yeah. Exactly.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 12-Jan-09 18:21, Darren New wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>> Not so sure about that, HTTP is used for lots of things nowadays, not 
>> just browsing web pages. RSS Feeds, Client/Server applications, etc ..
> 
> I'll go with "HTTP is the most misused app-level protocol." ;-)
> 
> I suspect SMTP still outweighs it, tho. And of course telephone dwarfs 
> internet as well.
> 
Don't forget that even SMTP is nowadays often tunneled over HTTP to 
circumvent the firewalls. ;)

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Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Perhaps you meant "the most used application-level protocol"? (Even them 
> > I rather doubt it's correct. Surely SMTP dwarfs it...)

> Not so sure about that, HTTP is used for lots of things nowadays, not 
> just browsing web pages. RSS Feeds, Client/Server applications, etc ..

  But remember that 90% of SMTP traffic is spam. Take all the regular
SMTP traffic and multiply it by 10, and you might get a good figure of
how much the SMTP protocol is really used.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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