After posting a sarcastic comment on people’s ability to be distracted by new technology instead of being aware of and doing the hard work to improve the ubiquitous and dominant HTTP API work on the table, API veteran Darrel Miller posted a nice list of links to interesting Internet standards work that is happening. This list represents foundational work on Internet standards that often goes overlooked by the regular Silicon Valley spotlight, but is what will actually provides the foundation for the future of APIs and Internet powered technology.
Darrel said, “what most people don’t yet realize is that the HTTP wonks are currently building a plethora of capabilities that allow you to do almost anything on top of HTTP/1/2/3 and QUIC”:
- WebTransport to replace WebSockets
- MASQUE is protocol tunnel over HTTP/3
- Capsule protocol for sending datagrams over HTTP
- MOQ which despite its name is generalized pubsub over QUIC
In a time where technology is attempting to go through another round of unecessary abstractions, not because the technology requires it, but because corporations business models require it, it becomes even more important to develop our collective awareness of the underlying HTTP protocols everything we depend on is built upon. Thank you to Darrel for sharing these links, and we recommend following the links and subscribing to the email lists supporting each of these steps forward in our shared Internet standards, and not the platform of any single tech company.
