[Bug 16000] Trailers

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16000

--- Comment #12 from Hallvord R. M. Steen <hallvord@opera.com> ---
> Well. Support for trailers is spotty because there's a chicken-and-egg problem.

The chicken-and-egg analogy isn't necessarily apt for Web technology features.
Or, if there is an analogy it may be the case that chunked HTTP response
trailers was an egg that no bird wanted to lie on, so it didn't hatch..

In general, it's not a problem as such if a web technology feature dies due to
being unused *and* not in demand. I do agree with you that chunked responses
and trailing headers fulfil a need, but it seems people are generally not aware
of having this potential need.. and thus the feature is not in demand.

HTTP/1.1 has been with us for a while. If there was demand for trailing headers
in XHR, browser vendors would have implemented it IMO. As of today, I've
verified that IE, Opera, Chrome and Firefox agree on NOT including trailing
headers in XHR data, further, I find a grand total of *0* bugs requesting HTTP
Trailer support for XHR in Mozilla's, WebKit's and Opera's bug trackers. That's
pretty strong evidence that there is very little demand for this feature.

> Unless I'm missing something, up to now, a XHR implementation was allowed
> to support Trailers. Don't forbid it now without creating an alternative.

As I already said, we're documenting a stable API here. If demand emerges we
should absolutely add xhr.getTrailingHeader('foo') and
xhr.getAllTrailingHeaders() or some such. However, web technology is so complex
by now that I guess any feature needs some evangelist, some shiny demo, some
articles teasing regular developers with good stuff. It seems odd to assert
that technical development depends on PR, but maybe that's the way it is now.
So if you want to "rescue" Trailer maybe you need to find somebody who can
write about the value on A List Apart or something, and see if demand
happens..?

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Received on Tuesday, 21 May 2013 18:27:20 UTC