- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU>
- Date: Thu, 02 May 1996 09:52:17 -0700
- To: Paul Leach <paulle@microsoft.com>
- Cc: "'koen@win.tue.nl'" <koen@win.tue.nl>, "'http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com'" <http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
>>Not accurate -- the cache never needs to do any such thing in order to
>>remain conditionally compliant with HTTP (the meaning of "SHOULD").
>
> If it doesn't cache responses as a general rule, it may be a proxy, but
> it ain't a cache.
A cache will only cache responses for which it believes there to be
a reasonable likelihood of a later hit on that cached entry. It is
always possible for the cache to have a better idea of that likelihood
than the origin server, and thus it is always possible for the cache
to not want to cache a response, even when the response is cachable.
The spec should never require anything that doesn't need to be required,
and there is no reason to include additional sections on caching which
describe things not determinable (nor determined by) the protocol.
...Roy T. Fielding
Department of Information & Computer Science (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
University of California, Irvine, CA 92717-3425 fax:+1(714)824-4056
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/
Received on Thursday, 2 May 1996 10:39:30 UTC