RE: Using If and not failing

> Previous conversation abridged:
>
> > > One of your proposals:
> > > > 1) allow comma separated notation for tagged lists (to
> > > > workaround proxy
> > > > limitations)
> > >
> > > This completely breaks the syntax of the header for clients sending
> > > requests to servers that don't immediately support 2518bis.  Clients
> > > wouldn't actually be able to use commas for years because there is
> > > currently no way to see if a server supports 2518bis.  I'm
> > pointing this
> > > out because if we decide to do this, we have to be clear on
> > > understanding it's not going to be very useful for a long time.
> >
> > What you say is true and applies to *any* "new" feature in
> > RFC2518bis --
> > therefore it makes sense to avoid them wherever possible
> > (thus the proposal
> > to use the If header instead of inventing a new header).
>
> I don't think my logic supports your conclusion.
>
> Adding commas to the If header is *exactly* as disruptive as inventing a
> new header.

Yes.

However, we *already* have the desired behaviour (for the conditional
operation). So this is something that is already supported by RFC2518, and
we should use it. Clients can use it *now*.

The *only* thing that's missing (and it's only a problem when there are
misbehaving proxies in the communication path) is the change to allow comma
separated lists. Whether we do *that* change is a completely separate issue.


Julian
--
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760

Received on Sunday, 2 February 2003 15:55:25 UTC