- From: David W. Morris <dwm@shell.portal.com>
- Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 15:33:51 -0800 (PST)
- To: html working group <html-wg@w3.org>
- Cc: connolly@beach.w3.org, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Larry Masinter wrote: > > I would conjecture that the only difference between your proposed new > method and POST is in the default caching behavior. Except for the case we learned about Friday in the caching subgroup meeting .. apparently New Zealand employes a country wide hierarichical cache to minimize WWW internet costs. To maximize performance and avoide cache polution, they short circuit HTTP methods when they believe the result can't be reused from a cache. Hence it isn't sufficient to see the response header but they need to know based on the request method or some other indicator. GET is believed cachable (at least w/o the ? in the UURL) and POST is believed non-cachable. At best, to redefine long understood semantics of GET and POST would cause the country and its users harship and frustration. A new method or redefining (I read the current HTTP drafts either way on the issue of content with GET) GET seems to provide more compatibility. Depending on existing proxies and how they might now handle GET with content-length != 0, this might just boil down to an issue between the sending User Agent and the server and not require WWW wide deployment before it can be used in applicationas between cooperating client/server pairs. Dave Morris
Received on Sunday, 4 February 1996 15:38:20 UTC