Google & I

I was brushing off my Java skills the other day. It's been a little while and I ran into a task I could not, from memory, recall how to write. So I turned to Google and quickly came up with this post from 1996(!) on the subject:

From: Lawrence Page

I have a web robot which is a Java app. I need to be able to set the User-Agent field in the HTTP header in order to be a good net citizen (so people know who is accessing their server). Anyone have any ideas?

Right now, Java sends a request that includes something like:

User-Agent: Java/1.0beta2

I'd rather not rewrite all the HTTP stuff myself. I tried just searching in the JDK for the Java/1.0beta2 figuring I could just change the string, but I couldn't find it. Perhaps it is stored as a unicode string?

An easy method of setting the User-Agent field should probably be added to Java, so people can properly identify their programs.

Thanks, Larry Page

Hmm, I wonder what kind of "web robot" this Larry Page was working on and hope his project was successful!

Does it bode well for me that I ran into the same question?

Comments

[John Rockefeller]

That's awesome. I always love these things, where it's like "before they were stars".

Good stuff!

[rajaash]

good

[Ibod Catooga]

Haha Larry Page lit your ass up with some napalm!

Feel the burn my niggas.

[Cristian]

Only that Google used Python for its robots.

[Sean]

This shows how the leaps of men are sometimes made off others shoulders.

[Michael Martin]

Haha - That's brilliant! Great find! :D

[Scott]

All Google crawlers are python based. Especially the crawlers.

[EW]

I questioning the legitimacy of the post since both the question and response are dated exactly 3am.

[Guy Rosen]

@BW - interesting find. Poking around a bit I can see that most if not all all old Usenet posts from that period have a date header and not a time (as can be seen in the raw message). Apparently the standards of 1996 did not demand a time field.

So, Google Groups simply set 0:00 (PST) as the time when importing the old Usenet archives. You see 3am because you're on EST.

[Nico]

I guess Larry Page switched to Python after getting frustrated with Java.

[Woody Smith]

An easy method of setting the User-Agent field should probably be added to Java, so people can properly identify their programs. I am also interested on the web robot that Larry Bode had set-up. Hope he was able to complete it and make it available for critic. Nice work.

[Keyword Tool]

I think the thing has been resolved already. Its been quite a year now. I wonder if Larry Page has still confusion on the Java thing now.