Re: Round 2: moving HTTP 1.0 to informational

Larry Masinter wrote:
> 
> The data sent with a POST usually corresponds to information that
> results from an HTML form. I actually can't think of any other
> application.  Are there in fact any applications that POST anything
> other than form data? I'd suggest:
> 
> # The URI in a POST request identifies the resource that will handle
> # the enclosed entity as data to be processed, e.g., values from a
> # form that has been filled out.
> 
This view seems to represent a Mosaic (incl derivatives)-centric
view of clients on the Web.  In our Intranet environment, the main
client is MS-Excel with appropriate add-ins for http.  It is true that
the data is the resulting POST could have come from an HTML form but
I don't think any of today's extant Mosaic derivatives could handle
a form of the size that would be required for a typical POST action.  
But this does not detract from the proposed language above.
MS-Excel and other clients may represent an extreme situation but the
language covers the situation adequately.

bob

Received on Tuesday, 9 January 1996 11:08:43 UTC