Re: Issue 133: SOAP and Web Architecture: Draft sentences for HTTP bi nding preamble.

Andrew Layman wrote:
> 
> Idempotency is a characteristic that occurs at a semantic level above
> the simple ability to enclose and send a message, and often depends for
> its effect on a context that suppresses duplicates. 

Protocols above TCP in the protocol stack are supposed to be about
semantics.

> ... Maybe it is time to
> rethink the idea that all non-HTTP GET messages are required to have
> side-effects.

I don't think it's productive to go over this all again because I've
done it several times over the last few months. Nevertheless, recognize
that you are arguing not with the HTTP specification but with one of Tim
Berners Lee's Web Axioms. The HTTP specification is just a reflection of
those axioms. Here are some references:

 * http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Axioms.html
 * http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Feb/0091.html
 * http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jan/0182.html
 * http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/02/06/rest.html
 * http://www.ebuilt.com/fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm
 * http://www.ebuilt.com/fielding/pubs/dissertation/evaluation.htm

This isn't an HTTP issue. It is a web architecture issue.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 21:23:50 UTC