Re: Comments about http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Architecture#Conten t : is GET the only idempotent method

Mike,

In Message-ID: <2AE31649CF989F4FB354F6D95EB0CE6E4D6745@xmlfmail.xmlfund.com>
From: Mike Dierken <mike@dataconcert.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:53:06 -0800
Subject: Comments about http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Architecture#Conten
t : is GET the only idempotent method

you say,

"""http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Architecture#Content
"The introduction of any other method apart from GET which is idempotent is
also incorrect, because the results of such an operation effectively form a
separate address space, which violates the universality."

I though that PUT was idempotent - it is okay to do the same PUT twice
without bad stuff happening"""

You were right, I was wrong.  I have changed the paragraph to read:

"""The introduction of any other method apart from GET which has no
side-effects and is simply a function of the URI is also incorrect, because
the results of such an operation effectively form a separate address space,
which violates the universality."""

I have also added:

"""(Example:  Instead of defining a new method CVSSTAT to retreive the code
management status of a document, that status should be given a URI in the
server's space, and headers used to point the aware client to it.
Otherwise, we end up with a class of document which contains interesting
informatio but cannot be linked to.)"""

This should make more sense.  I misused the word "idempotent".

Tim BL