RE: Dereferencing HTTP URIs (redux?)

> Pat Hayes:
> > Seen in this way, the 303 is not so much a 'signal' to the 
> requesting agent that the resource in question is, or might be, a
> non-information resource - a signal which seems arbitrary, ad-hoc and
> potentially confusing - but rather simply as an acknowledgement of
> the fact that a non-information resource cannot *possibly*, by virtue
> of its very nature, return a direct response to a GET request.

May I offer a slight correction?  In the case of a non-IR, it cannot
return a direct response to the GET request.  But as Alan points out,
the resource could in fact be *any* resource -- even an IR.  So the 303
response is not necessarily because the resource *cannot* return a
direct response to the GET request.  It may return a 303 because it
*chooses* not to return a direct response -- perhaps because the
returned representation would have to be huge, for example.


David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
+1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
http://www.hp.com/go/software

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