RE: Postconditions with no XML elements defined?

Lisa:
   If there are no strong objections, I propose that we adopt the simple
   normative rule a precondition is returned with 403 and a postcondition 
is
   returned with 409.

Geoff:
I'd fall into the "strong objection" camp.  403 means the user should
not retry the operation, because it will never succeed.  This will
sometimes be the case for both precondition and postcondition
failures.  409 means that there is something the user could do to the
resource to make the operation succeed.  This will also sometimes be
the case for both precondition and postcondition failures.

Jim:
I agree with Geoff. It would be nice to have a consistent, simple rule 
distinguishing 403 and 409 that could be applied in all circumstances, but 
this would not account for useful variability across, or perhaps even 
within servers. Interoperability won't suffer because the marshalling is 
the same, both are client error condidtions, and the semantics of the 
distinction between them is well specified by HTTP in a way that clients 
can make use of.

Received on Thursday, 12 July 2001 13:32:23 UTC