Re: an idempotent idea (think it twice - see what happens)

Shel Kaphan writes:
> Balint Nagy Endre writes:
>  > Shel Kaphan writes:
> 	...
>  > > That would still seem to suggest that something should happen when
>  > > storing into caches, and not just for fetching from them, as intended.
>  > Of course, the "may-cache" will enable storing (depending on other headers).
> 
> Um, we may not be communicating yet.  Cache-control: serve-from-cache
> (or whatever it's called) would be only a request header, not a response header.
> So it could not affect storing into caches, only fetching from them.
> Or perhaps you are suggesting yet another header?
You forgot to mention previously, that your proposed
"Cache-Control: serve-from-cache" will be a request header.
I like the fresh idea of introducing a permissive cache-control directive.
(Now we have only restrictive ones.)
But to have to fetch something from the cache, we shall first something
to store. Both clients and servers must implement the new method to be
working. From this viewpoint it is indifferent, client or server stuffs
in the permissive cache-control. If you want to employ permissive
cache-control to tell caches, that an entity-body contained in a PUT-like
request can be cached, then it makes sense.

I had only GET-like methods in mind, when I read your proposal.
(This is my mistake, of course.)

The collision can be resolved by making permissive cache-control a
general header.
However, it's possible that permissive cache-control directive will not be 
Cache-Control: <something permissive>, but some other, new header.

Andrew. (Endre Balint Nagy) <bne@bne.ind.eunet.hu>

We will see later, how can a permissive cache-controlling directive
implemented.

Received on Tuesday, 5 September 1995 22:17:28 UTC