Re: [colorforth] TCP State Engine

[John Drake <jmdrake_98@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Mark Slicker <maslicke@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Apr 2004, Samuel A. Falvo II wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday 15 April 2004 05:38 pm, Mark Slicker
> wrote:
> > > I find offensive the encroachment of
> comp.lang.forth reasoning.
> >
> > Where in my post does it reak of CLF reasoning? 
> Nowhere, that's where.
> >
> 
> Please, examine the context. I think you have a
> problem with context. Also
> notice I say the encroachment of comp.lang.forth
> reasoning. I've been
> here from the begining, I would like this list to
> mantain a positive
> direction, which has for the most part.

Mark, I'm afraid you are the one that's lost sight
of the context here.  While I don't agree with
everything Sam says he's on the money this time.
At least if I understand him right.  Jonah was
the one saying (if I understood him right) that
somehow TCP would need to be more complicated
if you wanted to support a non-trivial browser.
Sam's counterpoint is that the complexity of
TCP really has NOTHING to do with the complexity
of a web browser.  The same basic TCP protocol
that supported HTML 1.0 now supports HTML 4.0,
Flash, JavaScript, DHTML ect.

Now you asked Sam where he got his "5 block"
estimate for wget.  As you well know Chuck
has estimated 3 blocks for TCP.  I'm not sure
what Chuck is basing this on, but I'm guessing
it's on his experiences at iTV.  Obviously they
had a working TCP/IP stack that was written
in machineForth and/or ANS Forth.  (I'm not
sure who did what at iTV, I just know from
Jeff's stories that there were MF and AF
programmers).  So (correct me if I'm wrong
Sam) 5 blocks come from 3 block estimate for
TCP + 2 blocks estimate for the rest of wget.

Also the following statement seems to have
gotten you off kilter.

===========================================
I couldn't agree more with this.  Fortunately for us,
most problems are quite trivial, as long as you let go
of certain basic assumptions and presuppositions 
===========================================

You seem to be stuck on the idea that the "you"
in the above quote is "you" as in "Mark Slicker".
I think (again correct me if I'm wrong Sam) the
"you" is a generic for "anyone".  After all you
(Mark Slicker) are clearly not the one that was
talking about "refrigerator browsers".  The above
could be written as follows.

===============================================
Fortunately for us most problems are quite
trivial as long as the programmer can let go
of certain basic assumptions and presuppositions.
===============================================

Sam mentioned a few.  Here are a few more.

1) You expect the browser to run under Windows,
Linux, Mac ect.

2) You expect the browser to handle JavaScript,
DHTML, Java applets, Flash

3) You expect the browser to handle frames, 
iframes ect.

Actually # 3 wouldn't be too bad, but numbers
1 and 2 could be monsters.  Of course there
are many browsers that don't try to do 
everything that PC/Linux/Mac browsers do.
Cell phone browsers don't.  Most PDA browsers
don't.  The iTV browser didn't.  But it some
ways the iTV browser did more.  Anyway none
of these browser features have anything to
do with the size of your TCP code and (again
I think) that was Sam's point.

Regards,

John M. Drake


	
		
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