Should Http Be Replaced ? Http seems like a real pain these days...

[SoundStorm 0]

Here's a question for you that i've been asking myself a while. Http is old, tired, stateless, text based... primitive... yet it is deeply rooted into anything internet related. So i ask myself and you... shoudn't a better protocol be introduced. One that doens't require sessions or massive xml and text parsing. It would imply the re-inventation of browsers, applications and the whole internat practically and it will probably never happen unless say there's gonna be a broswer supporting both https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/overview/ and nc  site.com/ (ncp = new cool protocol) ... i dunno ... what's your thouths on the matter ... should HTTP be replaced with something more up to date with the market needs ... or not... ? Regards

[Jonnyabc 0]

Wow, Sebastian, this is EXACTLY what I say too!

 

Unfortunately, this "primitive" (my word exactly) system is indeed old and out of date...it's still a URL...a file path...a way to locate a file on a computer system by manually typing in the file location/address, which spans back to at least the DOS days. The problem is asking how to replace the current system. Let's face it, it works as is, even though it's primitive, ancient, and out of date. Regardless, it does not look very pretty.

 

Hopefully Web 3.0 (or at least 4.0) will take care of this issue. The internet is constantly evolving, and new features are being added on each year. What once was just some static pages with some very basic fonts and colors and a few images has now become the largest hub for our world's society.

 

As a graduating student in database management (the study of how to digitally store useful data to be used for information), this is a very difficult problem to solve. The reason is, everything needs a unique identifier. What do I mean by that? A social security number, drivers license number, school id, fingerprint...something that identifies me as me, and not as the other twenty Jonnyabc's that are possibly out there on the internet. How can we, therefore, replace the current system? How do we uniquely identify a website? How do we identify each page on the site?

 

The only answer I can come up with (it just donned on me) would be to make a browser that DISPLAYS the URL slightly differently. What I am suggesting is this: make the URL possible for anyone to read. For instance, take an example of the following URL:

 

https://www.1and1.com/website-builder

 

Say when you get there, the title of the page is "My Website - Home". Now let's try it with my new standard...

 

With the new standard, you would change the title "My Website - Home" to "Home". The browser will now display the URL with the following:

 

Company: MyWebsite: Home

 

This is still about the same length, but is easier to understand. Basically, the browser is interpreting the URL, taking the extension ".com" and converts it to "Company", the domain name "mywebsite" and converts it to "My Website" (the new standard would include a special file or meta tag that would tell the browser the site name) and then add the title of the page "Home".

 

Basically, this is the bread crumb approach that you find in most large websites (even Xisto uses it here: "> Open Discussion Forums » Computers & Websites » The Internet » Website Discussion » Should Http Be Replaced ?" The : or > or whatever symbol you use to denote a "next" or "sub" could be browser based...to be entirely honest, IE is partially onto this setup, but they still use the HTTP approach.

 

If you like my idea (maybe it's already someone else's), spread the word! Maybe I'll eventually figure out how to code Mozilla Firefox add-ons to make something like this...

[Baniboy 3]

I actually watched a show where they talked about new technology by which the browser connects to the server and stays connected. So you don't have to make http requests for everything, just form a connection and load stuff. And the browser doesn't have to send requests to the server asking if anything is changed for everything. Not sure if it was about HTML5 or something.And there's always https :angel:

[kosmik 0]

HTTP is the default prefix for all websites, and I'm very sure that there is a way of having something different through scripts. But I don't mind the prefix HTTP since its shows us how old the internet is

[networker 0]

I never really gave HTTP any thought. It seems efficient enough for me.The idea of being able to reload a page without making a new page request doessound like a great idea though. If that's the case, then out with http and in with somethingnew.

[Jonnyabc 0]

I never really gave HTTP any thought. It seems efficient enough for me. The idea of being able to reload a page without making a new page request doessound like a great idea though. If that's the case, then out with http and in with something new.

You don't necessarily have to reload a page if you strictly use Flash (I wouldn't currently recommend this for a several reasons including size, compatibility, and SEO), or PHP with AJAX, which is similar to using Facebook and seeing live updates to the page without refreshing the web page (which still may cause SEO problems). To be slightly critical, that's what OpaQue has done with the homepage to Xisto.
Edited April 30, 2010 by Jonnyabc (see edit history)