[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 43400] Add priority attribute to XMLHttpRequest

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43400





--- Comment #32 from Mike Belshe <mbelshe at chromium.org>  2011-03-15 09:16:19 PST ---
Since @ap replied that he thinks this is a misfeature, I wanted to counter that.

Support for XHR Prioritization:
1) Today browsers don't have a priority for XHR requests and cannot determine which order is best.  Apps can help browsers run faster by hinting at which requests are needed most.

2) The solution is simple, backward-compatible, easy to implement, and advisory.  It gives the browser more information to react intelligently without requiring specific behavior.

3) many websites today are writing their own XHR loaders to load all content in order to have priority based loading.  As they do this, they make it more difficult for the browser to help them going forward, and throw a lot of code into javascript.  These solutions are also sub-optimal, as a single webpage never has as much intelligence about network activity as the browser itself.  Sites known that do this today include Google (maps, search, docs, and others) and Facebook.  There are probably more.

4) as we build new web protocols which support priorities natively, XHR prioritization ensures that apps can leverage the new feature.

5) As Anne pointed out (comment #14), there really hasn't been any negative feedback on this feature from the XHR group.  


Negative comments on XHR Prioritization
1) ap (comment #15) said that he doesn't like features which are "only used by 5-10 super incredibly optimized sites on the Web".  I'd agree, except that those 5-10 websites represent a much larger percentage of web traffic.

2) the rest is syntax nits, and minor implementation notes.

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