Re: POST-WITH-NO-SIDE-EFFECTS method from Duane Wessels on 1996-01-05 (http-caching-historical@w3.org from January 1996)

From: Duane Wessels <wessels@colorado.edu>
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 00:04:25 -0700
To: http-caching@pa.dec.com
Message-Id: <199601050704.AAA27268@burton.cs.colorado.edu>

Jeffrey Mogul writes:

>This suggestion (a new kind of POST method) has a certain elegance
>to it.  What worries me most is that it is probably incompatible

I like the idea of adding a POST-W-N-S-E method so that we effectively
make use of a caching hierarchy.  The Harvest cache doesn't forward
POST requests to parent/neighbor caches (unless behind a firewall).
Without the new method (or some other indication in the request)
POST-type requests won't be able to take advantage of the hierarchy.

I also hope that user agents will become more intelligent about
what they do and do not send to a proxy/cache (and which one to
use, etc.).  If a browser had that ability today, I bet it wouldn't
forward any POST requests to a cache.

Duane W.

Received on Friday, 5 January 1996 07:18:11 UTC