Re: Looking for comments on the HTTP Extension draft

At 09:31 12/18/98 -0800, Chris Newman wrote:
>I only skimmed the HTTP extensions draft and got the impression it was
>unnecessarily complex.  I won't have time to give a detailed critique
>before going on vacation, so I hope someone else will.  The following
>point is important:

Things have to be as simple as possible but no simpler. The choice between
parameters vs. name spaces have been discussed for a long time and the
consensus is to go with name spaces. Both solutions have pros and cons -
none is significantly simpler than the other.

>FYI, there was a long discussion in the USEFOR WG on header field prefixes
>for headers with various characteristics.  At the last IETF meeting of
>USEFOR, the room reached the conclusion that adding such prefixes was
>unnecessary complexity.  The current model where all headers are optional 
>seems sufficient for extensibility.  There was even a discussion of
>labelling hop-to-hop headers in Netnews which is similar to the HTTP proxy
>problem, and the same conclusion about unnecessary complexity was reached.

What I believe you are saying is that HTTP is sufficient as is without an
extension mechanism like the one proposed. I think the experience from the
multiple ways HTTP is actually being extended clearly indicates that this
is not the case.

Henrik
--
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen,
World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/People/Frystyk

Received on Friday, 18 December 1998 21:36:09 UTC