[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Client-side caching updates

[Brion Vibber]

On Sat, 2003-03-22 at 03:34, I wrote in wikitech-l:
> Okay, experimental code is in CVS and running on test.wikipedia.org,
> please give it a thorough tryout!
> 
> Caching is now enabled for all browsers except for Internet Explorer 5.0
> and earlier (which apparently have some other dreadful problems, and
> I've no means to test them).

Well, I've gotten no feedback, so either no one checked or no one had
any problems....

I've put the new client-side caching code on http://meta.wikipedia.org ,
which attracts at least some small traffic. Try it out and report any
problems, 'cause I'm going to install this soon on all languages, and if
your browser can't read any pages at all I'd prefer to hear about it
beforehand. :)

In summary:
* Should eliminate problems with red links continuing to appear after
the page is created (or blue links after the page is deleted)
* Should eliminate problems with page layout not changing to reflect
logging in or changing display preferences
* Should, *I think*, fix "reload doesn't actually reload without also
holding down control" problem with Internet Explorer
* Client-side caching should now work on other browsers than IE. Early
versions of IE (5.0 and before) are still blacklisted, as we had all
kinds of trouble trying to accommodate 5.0 and I don't want to mess it
up. ;)

Some things this update does *not* do:
* Cache pages on the server; this is only to allow your web browser to
cache a page once it's been generated for you (but still be able to
refetch automatically if it's changed when you revisit it). The
invalidation mechanisms will help make server-side page caching work
properly once it's added in the future, though.
* Allow for caching of anything other than viewing pages, history lists,
or the Recentchanges list. (Other things could be cached, though,
they're just not yet keyed for it.)
* Invalidate cached pages when you log out.
* Make a distinction between preference changes that will and won't
alter page display. (Overly aggressive in invalidating caches.)

See http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_strategy for more confusing
prose.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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