I am doing HTTP wrong

A fresh look at HTTP for agile languages (more importantly: Python)

1. I am doing HTTP wrong — a presentation by Armin Ronacher @mitsuhiko
2. The Web developer's Evolution
3. echo
4. request.send_header(…) request.end_headers() request.write(…)
5. return Response(…)
6. Why Stop there?
7. What do we love about HTTP?
8. Text Based
9. REST
10. Cacheable
11. Content Negotiation
12. Well Supported
13. Works where TCP doesn't
14. Somewhat Simple
15. Upgrades to custom protocols
16. Why does my application look like HTTP?
17. everybody does it
18. Natural Conclusion
19. we can do better!
20. we're a level too low
21. Streaming: one piece at the time, constant memory usage, no seeking.
22. Buffering: have some data in memory, variable memory usage, seeking.
23. TYPICAL Request / Response Cycle User Agent Proxy Server Application Stream “Buffered” Dispatcher View
24. In Python Terms def application(environ, start_response): # Step 1: acquire data data = environ['wsgi.input'].read(...) # Step 2: process data response = process_data(data) # Step 3: respond start_response('200 OK', [('Content-Type', 'text/plain')]) return [response]
25. One Level Up s = socket.accept() f = s.makefile('rb') requestline = f.readline() headers = [] while 1: headerline = f.readline() if headerline == '\r\n': break headers.append(headerline)
26. Weird Mixture on the app request.headers <- buffered request.form <- buffered request.files <- buffered to disk request.body <- streamed
27. HTTP's Limited signalling Strict Request / Response The only communication during request from the server to the client is closing the connection once you started accepting the body.
28. Bailing out early def application(request): # At this point, headers are parsed, everything else # is not parsed yet. if request.content_length > TWO_MEGABYTES: return error_response() ...
29. Bailing out a little bit later def application(request): # Read a little bit of data request.input.read(4096) # You just committed to accepting data, now you have to # read everything or the browser will be very unhappy and # Just time out. No more responding with 413 ...
30. Rejecting Form fields -> memory File uploads -> disk What's your limit? 16MB in total? All could go to memory. Reject file sizes individually? Needs overall check as well!
31. The Consequences How much data do you accept? Limit the overall request size? Not helpful because all of it could be in-memory
32. It's not just limiting Consider a layered system How many of you write code that streams? What happens if you pass streamed data through your layers?
33. A new approach
34. Dynamic typing made us lazy
35. we're trying to solve both use cases in one we're not supporting either well
36. How we do it Hide HTTP from the apps HTTP is an implementation detail
37. Pseudocode user_pagination = make_pagination_schema(User) @export( specs=[('page', types.Int32()), ('per_page', types.Int32())], returns=user_pagination, semantics='select', http_path='/users/' ) def list_users(page, per_page): users = User.query.paginate(page, per_page) return users.to_dict()
38. Types are specific user_type = types.Object([ ('username', types.String(30)), ('email', types.Optional(types.String(250))), ('password_hash', types.String(250)), ('is_active', types.Boolean()), ('registration_date', types.DateTime()) ])
39. Why? Support for different input/output formats keyless transport support for non-HTTP no hash collision attacks :-) Predictable memory usage
40. Comes for free Easier to test Helps documenting the public APIs Catches common errors early Handle errors without invoking code Predictable dictionary ordering
41. Strict vs Lenient
42. Rule of Thumb Be strict in what you send, but generous in what you receive — variant of Postel's Law
43. Being Generous In order to be generous you need to know what to receive. Just accepting any input is a security disaster waiting to happen.
44. Support unsupported types { "foo": [1, 2, 3], "bar": {"key": "value"}, "now": "Thu, 10 May 2012 14:16:09 GMT" } foo.0=1& foo.1=2& foo.2=3& bar.key=value& now=Thu%2C%2010%20May%202012%2014:16:09%20GMT
45. Solves the GET issue GET has no body parameters have to be URL encoded inconsistency with JSON post requests
46. Where is the streaming?
47. There is none
48. there are always two sides to an API
49. If the server has streaming endpoints — the client will have to support them as well
50. For things that need actual streaming we have separate endpoints.
51. streaming is different
52. but we can stream until we need buffering
53. Discard useless stuff { "foo": [list, of, thousands, of, items, we don't, need], "an_important_key": "we're actually interested in" }
54. What if I don't make an API?
55. modern web apps are APIs
56. Dumb client? Move the client to the server
57. Q&A
58. Oh hai. We're hiring http://fireteam.net/careers