- From: Koen Holtman <koen@win.tue.nl>
- Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 18:23:57 +0100 (MET)
- To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Cc: snowhare@netimages.com, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Larry Masinter: > >However, I'm a little fuzzy on why lack-of-controls of history makes >'cache-busting' more of a problem, With some current browsers, if you use caching directives, this has weird side-effects on how the history mechanism works. HTTP/1.1 states that there should be no side effects on the history buffer, but not every current browser conforms to that. As long as these side-effects on the history mechanism remain, service authors which do not want the side effects (and there are many reasons for not wanting them) cannot use the caching directives. So these service authors will have to resort to one-time-URL cache busting techniques if they want to prevent the users from seeing stale data. Cache busting will remain with us to some extent until this unwanted coupling between history buffers and caches goes away. I have some hope that the language in 1.1 will make the coupling go away. If not, introducing explicit history control headers is my best bet on getting browsers to offer at least the option of not coupling between cache and history. Even though history control headers would not affect the bytes on the wire, they would affect the caching options for these bytes, so I feel that I could make a strong case for the http-wg getting involved in this area. >Larry Koen.
Received on Monday, 2 December 1996 09:32:58 UTC