Re: ANN: Experimental Chat System

[Andy McFadden <fadden@fadden.com>]

Terry Olsen <tolsen64@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Anyhow, if you do use it, let me know how it works.  I do expect problems as 
> I know UDP isn't a "reliable" protocol, but I am interested in finding out 
> just how well it performs, or doesn't perform.  It works perfectly on my 
> LAN, but I haven't tried it over the internet.

You're unlikely to lose UDP packets on a LAN.  The reliability is such
that some network card manufacturers used to turn off UDP checksums,
assuming the packets wouldn't be sent over the Internet, which made
life interesting.

You will lose UDP packets from time to time.  How much you lose depends on
lots of things you have no control over and little visibility into.  When
I was playing with network protocols I added a feature that caused the
receiver to randomly discard 20% of incoming traffic.  I figured if I could
handle that reasonably well, I could handle normal lossage.  (Turns out you
tend to lose things in bursts, so it's not quite right, but for a chat
system it should do.)

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