Microsoft Want to Ditch HTTP

Week of February 27, 2002
'After the holocaust it will be the only protocol left standing.'
  -- Don Box

I know Box. He's the head of Developmentor, the place where all my 
friends from QA went to. He is also the world guru in COM, if that 
tells you anything, and like all good US gurus he has a pony tail. 
If this article doesn't tell you why I didn't follow the other 
idiots to Developmentor, nothing will.

  'after the holocaust it will be the only protocol left standing.'

Where is this guy being fed his imagery?

  'This works for small transactions asking for Web pages, but when
   Web services start running transactions that take some time to complete
   over the protocol, the model fails.'

What he means to say is:

  'This works for healthy transactions devised by (mentally) healthy people.
   After all, the Internet ran wonderfully for years - until we got in it. Web
   services designed by Microsoft (or me) on the other hand may take some time
   to complete if they can complete at all, because I failed school.'

Then:

  'The problem, said Box, is that the intermediaries--that is, the companies
   that own the routers and cables between the client and server--will not allow
   single transactions that take this long.'

Which is of course true. This is due to two factors:

  1. These are normally Unix people and they are not stupid like Mr. Box.
  2. They hate Microsoft.

It's something like having a daughter deeply infected with bubonic 
plague and then asking your neighbour:

  'Can my Bonnie sleep over at your house tonight?'

It won't work. Your neighbour will move away. You might therefore 
say that Microsoft has something contagious and deadly, and you 
would be right.

  'We have to do something to make it (HTTP) less important.'

I can just see Gates jumping up and down in his softie chair when 
Box got to that part. He knew it was coming, but still he was 
excited. Something like what Hitler must have felt when he first 
heard the actual radio news bulletin that Poland had attacked 
Germany.

  'If we rely on HTTP we will melt the Internet.'

I think Don Box is short of self-confidence here. Anyone working for 
or associated with Microsoft has the ability to melt the Internet 
today. How close do you want to come? Melissa? ILOVEYOU? AnnaK? 
Nimda? Outlook here Outlook there? Just for us 'normal' folks having 
to deal with these idiots every day? Who says the Internet isn't 
melted already?

You know what Mr Box? You are like a typical US city. You are the 
bad element that has come to town. The good people run for their 
lives, they move away, while you sit there and say, Gee this is 
cool, where have we been, we gotta do this more often.

Then the city deteriorates more, and the good people find new 
suburbs, which are ok for a while, until you come out and ruin them 
too, and then the good people are thinking 'Can we maybe migrate to 
MARS or something?' and then they realise that if that's possible 
you will find your way there too and then they poison your water 
supply or something.

>http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-845220.html