- From: Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org>
- Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 22:16:09 -0700
- To: "'Tim Bray'" <tbray@textuality.com>
- Cc: <www-tag@w3.org>
I'm still missing the place where "all safe operations should
use GET" is justified as a piece of web architecture.
I've seen what seems to me to be argument-by-assertion:
("it's part of the web architecture because
it's part of the web architecture")
or argument-by-assumption:
("if we assume that all safe operations should use GET,
then all safe operations should use GET").
> It's precisely the job of the TAG to worry about web architecture,
> especially when it appears that other WGs are blowing it off.
The 'it' makes it sound like there _is_ a web
architecture, and the job of the TAG is to describe it.
But surely there's no intrinsic web architecture,
there are a bunch of separately evolving bits and pieces:
URIs, XML, HTTP, etc., all designed by committee.
The job of the TAG is to propose architectural principles that
are effective (they actually work, are implementable, can be
supported) as well as leading (cause the right new work to
happen.)
"All safe operations should use GET" doesn't seem to fit
within those constraints: while it sounds nice in principle,
there are ample drawbacks to enforcing it, even for SOAP.
Leadership is the skill of getting others to follow.
Unimplementable findings aren't a good way to lead.
Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net
Received on Monday, 22 April 2002 01:16:56 UTC