Why I consider "path finding" useless in SL, and what do people use it for?

[Masami Kuramoto]

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Unless he went back and edited the post I originaly replied to (some pages back - and knowing this kid as I do, it's likely that he has done so) - You'll notice that he changed his claim halfway through this "debate".

---

Hahaha! Good luck finding a post in this thread that I edited.

---

Either way, it does not matter.

Second Life and OSGrid are not web pages, they are not web sites. The distinction in this, for the general public, is semantic.

---

You should consider yourself lucky that Mr. Deakins called your goof a "small mistake." If I had said similar nonsense, he would be all over it.

[Qie Niangao]

---

The distinction in this, for the general public, is semantic.

---

Oh do let's interrupt the re-arrangement of deck chairs and settle this pressing matter of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I've decided that either

you are really stupid

or that you are someone who enjoys arguing the impossible, just for the sake of the enjoyment.

I don't recall seeing anyone call you stupid

in this thread. I'm sure that

many of us have thought it

, but I haven't seen it written.

---

Emphasis mine. I like your passive-agressive style and your frequent illusions of unanimity. Do you feel cornered, Mr. Deakins?

---

Ha. You wish. If you had put forward anything whatsoever to refute my point, then I wouldn't feel cornered so much as feel defeated. Actually, I'd feel corrected. But you haven't put anything forward at all to support your case - except your personal opinion, and you're the only one who agrees with it. Some of the things you have put forward are inventions of your own that you placed in my mouth. It's a silly tactic and so easy to shoot down. It hardly makes you appear credible, does it

So I'm hardly cornered, am I? Just the opposite. Your arguments are wrong, and you frequently try to support them with inventing things I said and responding to the fiction, so that much of what you write is all too easy to shoot down. And I should feel cornered?

[Phil Deakins]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

So far, there hasn't been anything "hard" coming from you. Most of the time you say things like "You're wrong" or "Do your own research." You shift the burden of proof on me because your hands are empty. When I argued that both the browser-centric and the standards-centric view fail to properly describe the web, you completely ignored that. Now you even dispute the authority of the very person who wrote the browser that gave the web its name:

---

The hard bits I referred to were my questions. You've avoided answering questions that I've asked because you have no answers for them but, rather than let them influence your thinking, you simply ignore them.

I don't dispute the authority of Tim Berners-Lee. I stated clearly that he has no authority. And that is abolutely true. Or perhaps you meant that he's an authority on the subject.

 

---

I am not arguing otherwise. You keep arguing because you disagree that a grid is technically a website. I haven't changed my position at all.

---

You say that a grid is technically a website but not actually a website. What's the difference? That's another question. I hope you won't ignore it like you've done so often in this thread.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A grid and a website certainly have some elements in common but that doesn't make them both websites - not even technically. A motorbyke has an engine, seats for more than one person, a steering mechanism, wheels, needs fuel, etc. but it is not a car, and never will be a car - not even technically. Your logic is flawed.

---

Your analogy is flawed. Here's an accurate one: A Skype call is technically a phone call. You could go on for hours telling me that Skype uses a proprietary VoIP protocol, requires special phones or no phone at all, can do video, text chat and file transfer as well, etc. blah blah blah... it's still a phone call, because it involves person A talking to person B over a network. And this is all that matters.

---

---

Nope. My analogy is very accurate. You said that a grid is a website because it has certain things and a website has similar things - documents, etc. A car and a motorbyke also have similar things - wheels etc., so it's a very good analogy to what you've been saying.

I don't like your Skype analogy but I can't dimiss it out of hand. It seems to me that a phone call is only ever a phone call if it uses the phone network and, if a Skype call doesn't use any of the phone network, then it's not a phone call. You may agree with that but still say that it's technically a phone call even if it doesn't use the phone network, because it achieves the same thing as a phone call. That may be what you mean by 'technically'. You may mean that a grid is techically a website because, although it isn't actually a website, it achieves the same thing as a website. If that's what you mean, please say so.

[Phil Deakins]

"You can export region archives from OpenSim. They include the scene graph in XML as well as all the attached assets."

I'll grant you that regions and websites have those things in common - like a car and motobyke. It doesn't make a grid 'technically' a website though, any more than a motorbyke is 'technically' a car. They are both transport but they are not the same thing, not even technically. If something is technically a something, then it is that something. If a kitchen appliance is technically a washing machine, then it washes things and, therefore, it is a washing a machine.

 

"Would you consider a live update of a web page via AJAX a document? How about Cloud Party's use of WebSocket communication?"

Yes to AJAX (javascript and XML). I wasn't familiar with Cloud Party so I had a quick check via Google. It appears to be a programme that runs in a browser. About Cloud party. It doesn't make any differecne what protocol data transfers use. Using one that was designed for the web doesn't mean that the thing on the server end is a website, or that the local thing is a browser.

A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell.

A grid does not need a document shell to hold the 'action'. A grid is a programme, and the viewer is a programme that connects to the grid. Unlike a website, neither of them needs anything to be in the form of a document. With a grid, it's often useful to have some data in the form of documents, but it isn't actually necessary. It is necessary with a website.

A website is an entity that can be accessed with a browser. You open your browser and you go to the website - you fetch a single page of the website but you don't connect to the website. You simply fetch a single page and that's the end of it, unless the page has something embeded that needs a connection to be open. You can't do that with a grid. For a grid, you need to open a different programme (a viewer), and connect to the grid. You don't fetch a page from the grid, you fetch data that is understood by your local viewer programme. And you stay connected to the grid. Unless you are connected, you cannot use the grid at all.

It's self-evident that a grid is fundamentally different to a website and that the two are not the same. They may or may not use some of the same data transfer protocols, and they may or may not use some of the same data formats, but they are fundamentally different things. They are not even technically the same because they achieve different things - i.e. they don't do the same things.

 

"Even if I was right, I would still be wrong. Do you feel cornered, Mr. Deakins?"

You wish If you were right about anything, I would say so. We are only discussing one little thing - whether or not a grid is technically a website - and you are wrong about that. It's such a narrow thing that there is no room to be right about different aspects and wrong about others. I've agreed with you about documents. Actually I've taken your word for it, because it makes good sense to me, which means that I haven't disagreed with you about it. But there's precious little possible common ground here because the disagreement is about such a narrow thing. And it's even narrower because you say that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website. As long as you maintain that, I'll say you are wrong about it.

 

 

[Solar Legion]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Unless he went back and edited the post I originaly replied to (some pages back - and knowing this kid as I do, it's likely that he has done so) - You'll notice that he changed his claim halfway through this "debate".

---

Hahaha! Good luck finding a post in this thread that I edited.

---

Either way, it does not matter.

Second Life and OSGrid are not web pages, they are not web sites. The distinction in this, for the general public, is semantic.

---

You should consider yourself lucky that Mr. Deakins called your goof a "small mistake." If I had said similar nonsense, he would be all over it.

---

Thank you for taking - and failing - this basic reading comprehension test.

Thank you for being sokind as to also take - and pass - the test for an inflated ego.

Run along now and go on back to the playground. It's time to leave the adults alone.

[Masami Kuramoto]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell.

---

Click this link: http://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png

What do you see? A PNG image, embedded into nothing. The image _is_ the document.

Click this link: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

What do you see? A folder on a FTP server, embedded into nothing. The folder _is_ the document.

Click this link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/YE7VzlLtp-4

What do you see? A Flash applet, embedded into nothing. The applet _is_ the document.

Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page.

---

A website is an entity that can be accessed with a browser. You open your browser and you go to the website - you fetch a single page of the website but you don't connect to the website. You simply fetch a single page and that's the end of it, unless the page has something embeded that needs a connection to be open. You can't do that with a grid. For a grid, you need to open a different programme (a viewer), and

connect

to the grid. You don't fetch a page from the grid, you fetch data that is understood by your local viewer programme. And you stay connected to the grid. Unless you are connected, you cannot use the grid at all.

---

Persistent connections to web servers have been around at least since HTTP 1.1. In fact web servers using HTTP 1.1 do _not_ close a connection unless the client requests it or a timeout occurs. This has been used for pipelining (i.e. multiple requests over a single connection) as well as services that needed to push updates to clients. Since HTTP was not really intended for that kind of thing, its use has now been superseded by the WebSocket protocol, which is basically a fake HTTP handshake to establish a generic full-duplex TCP connection.

Websites were able to host interactive content before WebSocket was around. WebSocket merely introduced a way to do it in line with W3C standards. A website that implements the same services with non-standard protocols is still a website. This is what the distinction between "technically" and "formally" is all about.

---

And it's even narrower because you say that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website.

---

You are putting words in my mouth, Mr. Deakins. Do you feel cornered?

[161488303349]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell.

---

Click this link: 

http://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png

What do you see? A PNG image, embedded into nothing. The image _is_ the document.

Click this link: 

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

What do you see? A folder on a FTP server, embedded into nothing. The folder _is_ the document.

Click this link: 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/YE7VzlLtp-4

What do you see? A Flash applet, embedded into nothing. The applet _is_ the document.

Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page.

 

---

Wikipedia:

 "A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device."

"Web pages are requested and served from web servers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)."

"Web pages may consist of files of static text and other content stored within the web server's file system (static web pages), or may be constructed by server-side software when they are requested (dynamic web pages)."

+

technically and formally if a document or resource is not wrapped and delivered in/via HTTP then is not a web page

any server, say like FTP for example, that don't use HTTP protocol is not a web server

if any server that dont use HTTP can be called a web server then so can a SQL database server be called a web server

the only thing that servers have in common is that they serve stuff to clients over a network. it dont make them all web servers

if a server dont use HTTP then is not a webserver so by definition is not a website

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell.

---

Click this link: 

http://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png

What do you see? A PNG image, embedded into nothing. The image _is_ the document.

Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below.

Click this link: 

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

What do you see? A folder on a FTP server, embedded into nothing. The folder _is_ the document.

Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below.

Click this link: 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/YE7VzlLtp-4

What do you see? A Flash applet, embedded into nothing. The applet _is_ the document.

Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below.

Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page.

---

The red bits above are my short comments. My longer comments are below.

 

For the first one (Firefox image), I see:-

<html><head><meta content="width=device-width; height=device-height;" name="viewport"><link href="resource://gre/res/TopLevelImageDocument.css" rel="stylesheet"><link href="chrome://global/skin/TopLevelImageDocument.css" rel="stylesheet"><title>firefox.png (PNG Image, 117 × 125 pixels)</title></head><body><**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png"></body></html>

It's an html document - a webpage.

 

For the second one (FTP), I see:-

<!DOCTYPEHTMLPUBLIC"-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>FTP directory /pub/ at ftp.mozilla.org</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

and then the BODY content, in which is the text content that you see. It's an html document - a webpage.

 

For the third one (Flash), I see:-

<!DOCTYPEhtml>

<htmllang="en"dir="ltr">

<head> 

<title>Big Buck Bunny - YouTube</title>

and then the rest of the Head, followed by the Body, in which is embedded the Flash that you see. It's an html document - a webpage.

 

They are all html documents - webpages. What point were you trying to make? Oh yes. I remember. Your point was that:-

"Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page."  (the bolding is mine).

Really?  

[Phil Deakins]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

Persistent connections to web servers have been around at least since HTTP 1.1. In fact web servers using HTTP 1.1 do _not_ close a connection unless the client requests it or a timeout occurs. This has been used for pipelining (i.e. multiple requests over a single connection) as well as services that needed to push updates to clients. Since HTTP was not really intended for that kind of thing, its use has now been superseded by the WebSocket protocol, which is basically a fake HTTP handshake to establish a generic full-duplex TCP connection.

Websites were able to host interactive content before WebSocket was around. WebSocket merely introduced a way to do it in line with W3C standards. A website that implements the same services with non-standard protocols is still a website. This is what the distinction between "technically" and "formally" is all about.

---

And it's even narrower because you say that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website.

---

You are putting words in my mouth, Mr. Deakins.

 Wow! I wish I was so clever as to accuse the opposition of the same things that the opposition found fault with me over. Why didn't I think of that? Dammit!

Ah but you forgot one very small and minor detail. When I said you put words in my mouth - several times - you'd actually attributed words to me that I never said, so I was justified in picking you up on it. If you want to turn the tables with the 'words in mouths' thing, you really need to find something that I've wrongly attributed to you. But you couldn't do that because you have actually said that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website. That's your whole point. It's what you've been arguing about - that a grid is technically a website but not actually a website.

---

Yes, persistent connections can be used with websites. Do you have a point to make by saying it?

You keep asking me if I feel cornered and I've told you that I don't so why keep asking? Do you think it will get you into my head? Not a chance  A person is only cornered if they are backed into a corner. If anyone here should feel cornered, it's you. You're the one who has to skip over things you don't have answers for. And you're the one who has to try to gain the upper hand by putting words into my mouth, and then replying as though I said them. And you're the one who stands totally alone in this argument - nobody sides with you. And you're the comedian who produced links to non-documents when they are, in fact, html documents. That last one did made me laugh, and I appreciate it 

Just one little thing. W3C don't, and can't, produce standards. They produce recommendations. That's all.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

---

Either way, it does not matter.

Second Life and OSGrid are not web pages, they are not web sites. The distinction in this, for the general public, is semantic.

---

You should consider yourself lucky that Mr. Deakins called your goof a "small mistake." If I had said similar nonsense, he would be all over it.

---

Not at all. I wasn't all over your statement that a grid is technically a website and I wouldn't have been all over you using the word "webpage" instead of "website" either. I simply corrected a mistake you made about grids. It's you who chose to argue it out like this.

It's not dissimilar to me correcting you about W3C and standards. It's a small thing but, like grids and websites, you may choose to argue it for many forum pages. Just in case you do fancy arguing it, read the W3C site and check first.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

Oh do let's interrupt the re-arrangement of deck chairs and settle this pressing matter of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

---

Alright, Qie. How many do you think can do it? Personally, I think it depends on what dance they are doing. For instance, a slow smooch uses a lot less space than a jive, so a pin head could accomodate more angels if they are all smooching.