Marcello wrote:
Lee Passey wrote:
This objection, and Marcello's response, are both based on a faulty assumption: that the primary use of HTML files will be online, served up by some sort of HTTP server. I would bet that the vast majority of all HTML files offered by Project Gutenberg are downloaded to a local computer, and then read while offline.
But how does the file get to the local harddrive in the first place? Maybe you don't realize that the PG website is serving an average of 300.000 file requests for a total of 130 GB a day. That is 12 Mbit/s, or 8 T1 lines under full steam all day long.
In our case it is very important not to constipate the pipes with all those packets needed to open and close a connection which carry no useful data.
Lee did mention that the HTML version of a PG book be put into a downloadable zip file. This should lead to some reduction in "pipe flow". Otherwise, whenever someone accesses the online version, they may do so multiple times. Also, zip may help some with improved compression, and of course encapsulate multiple files into one. At least that's how I see it. How much savings this gives, if any, I can't estimate. On another matter, how Firefox handles multiple <style>'s is way cool. Is there some mechanism using Firefox to also select one among several supplied *external* stylesheets? Jon