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authorLoïc Hoguin <[email protected]>2012-02-27 09:54:16 +0100
committerLoïc Hoguin <[email protected]>2012-02-27 09:54:16 +0100
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+ROADMAP
+=======
+
+This document explains in as much details as possible the
+list of planned changes and work to be done on the Cowboy
+server. It is non-exhaustive and subject to change. Items
+are not ordered.
+
+* Write more, better examples.
+
+ The first step would be to port misultin's examples
+ to Cowboy. Then these examples could be completed with
+ examples for Cowboy specific features.
+
+ The extend/cowboy_examples is to be used for this. As
+ it is a separate repository, we can organize the file
+ structure as appropriate. Ideally we would have one
+ complete example per folder.
+
+ Examples should be commented. They may or may not be
+ used for writing the user guides.
+
+* Write user guides.
+
+ We currently have good API documentation, but no step
+ by step user guides.
+
+* Write more, better tests.
+
+ Amongst the areas less tested there is protocol upgrades
+ and the REST handler.
+
+ Current tests should be completed with unit tests
+ where applicable. We should probably also test the
+ dependencies used, like erlang:decode_packet/3.
+
+ While eunit and ct tests are fine, some parts of the
+ code could benefit from PropEr tests.
+
+* Continuous performance testing.
+
+ Initially dubbed the Horse project, Cowboy could benefit
+ from a continuous performance testing tool that would
+ allow us to easily compare the impact of the changes we
+ are introducing, similar to what the Phoronix test suite
+ allows.
+
+ Depending on the test it may be interesting to compare
+ Cowboy to other servers and eventually take ideas from
+ the servers that outperform Cowboy for the task being tested.
+
+* Improve HTTP/1.0 support.
+
+ Most of the work on Cowboy has been done with HTTP/1.1
+ in mind. But there is still a need for HTTP/1.0 code in
+ Cowboy. The server code should be reviewed and tested
+ to ensure compatibility with remaining HTTP/1.0 products.
+
+* HTTP 100 Continue support.
+
+ Tools like curl expect a 100 Continue before sending a
+ request body by default.
+
+* Content-Encoding support.
+
+ Cowboy should be able to send encoded content automatically.
+ The default should be to encode, but the developer must be
+ able to override this default either for the whole listener
+ or just for a single reply.
+
+* Improve body reading API.
+
+ We want to have various different things for reading the
+ body. First, there should be raw functions for the different
+ ways to read the body: basic, transfer encoded, multipart.
+ Each should allow us to limit the size of what is read.
+
+ On top of these functions there should be two more
+ advanced functions: one would return the result of parsing
+ a x-www-form-urlencoded body; the other would parse a
+ multipart request, save files from the multipart data to
+ a temporary location and return a proplist of values if any
+ along with the files details. This behavior is similar to
+ what is done automatically by PHP with its $_FILES array.
+
+ The advanced functions are of course here for convenience
+ only and it should be trivial to reimplement them directly
+ in a Cowboy application if needed.
+
+* Complete the work on Websockets.
+
+ Now that the Autobahn test suite is available (make inttests),
+ we have a definite way to know whether Cowboy's implementation
+ of Websockets is right. The work can thus be completed. The
+ remaining tasks are proper UTF8 handling and fragmentation.
+
+* SPDY support.
+
+ While SPDY probably won't be added directly to Cowboy, work
+ has been started on making Cowboy use SPDY.
+
+* Hooks.
+
+ Customizable hooks would allow the developer to extend Cowboy
+ easily. Two kinds of hooks are needed: before dispatching the
+ request, and before sending a reply.
+
+ The first would allow us to apply site-wide functions like
+ authentication or request logging and modify the Req if needed.
+
+ The second is more interesting for response logging or to
+ filter the replies, for example to send custom error pages.
+
+* Transport upgrades.
+
+ Some protocols allow an upgrade from TCP to SSL without
+ closing the connection. This is currently not possible
+ through the Cowboy API.
+
+* Resizing the acceptor pool.
+
+ We should be able to add more acceptors to a pool but also
+ to remove some of them as needed.
+
+* Simplified dispatch list.
+
+ For convenience purposes, the dispatch list should allow
+ lists instead of binaries. The lists can be converted to
+ binary by Cowboy at listener initialization.
+
+ There has also been discussion on allowing the dispatch
+ list to be hierarchical.
+
+* Add Transport:secure/0.
+
+ Currently Cowboy checks if a connection is secure by
+ checking if its name is 'ssl'. This isn't a very modular
+ solution, adding an API function that returns whether
+ a connection is secure would fix that issue.