- native multiplexing on a single TCP socket. No more connection pools, no more domain sharding...
- the server is now able to send data at arbitrary moments.
Here's a concrete example: how would you do a webchat ? You need bidirectional communication, potentially initiated by any party. Easy solution: use websockets.
With SPDY/HTTP2, you can use POSTs for sending messages and Server-sent events for receiving messages. You don't need to pool them, you don't need something-over-HTTP like websockets is; you just use standard HTTP semantics.
I actually agree with you for the most part. Google wants with HTTP2/SPDY to foster an internet based on highly stateful applications, the web as a remote GUI to their servers, rather than mostly stateless documents as it has been. I don't see this as an improvement.
To me, the real advantage are:
- native multiplexing on a single TCP socket. No more connection pools, no more domain sharding...
- the server is now able to send data at arbitrary moments.
Here's a concrete example: how would you do a webchat ? You need bidirectional communication, potentially initiated by any party. Easy solution: use websockets.
With SPDY/HTTP2, you can use POSTs for sending messages and Server-sent events for receiving messages. You don't need to pool them, you don't need something-over-HTTP like websockets is; you just use standard HTTP semantics.