Re: Common Gateway Interface

I didn't say that we should necessarily standardise the CGI implementation but 
we should specify which header fields MAY be passed, which MUST be passed and 
which MAY NOT be passed to CGI, NSAPI, ISAPI or JOHNDOESAPI. I also beleive 
every RFC concerning HTTP or an extension to it which adds to the headers should 
deal with this issue.

Failure to do this will force each Internet, Intranet and Extranet developer to 
write his own HTTP daemon in order to be assured of having access to all the 
information she needs. I would prefer them to be able to use standard HTTP 
daemons and (regardless of the API, or inteface which they use to integrate with 
it) can write applications and be assured which data they have access to.

If we beleive that standards are a good thing (and I certainly hope we do) then 
we should also believe in standards which will standardise the interoperability 
of HTTP daemons and applications. It will benefit the industry.

Ultimately I would like to see the interface between daemons and applications 
standardised and (even though you don't consider the API to be a good one) there 
is one precedence for an API within the IETF - GSS-API.

Cheers
Dylan


>From hallam@life.ai.mit.edu Thu May 29 14:29:44 1997
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>Subject: Re: Common Gateway Interface
>To: dbarrell@hotmail.com (Dylan Barrell)
>Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 17:24:19 -0400 (EDT)
>Cc: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
>In-Reply-To: <199705292039.NAA22475@f22.hotmail.com> from "Dylan Barrell" at 
May 29, 97 01:39:35 pm
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>> Why is there absolutely no mention of the CGI interaction between the HTTP 
>> daemon and the CGI programs? Surely this standard should specify which 
peices> the header are made available to CGI programs and how they are made 
available
>
>
>Because CGI is not an IETF spec, it was a hack put together by Ari
>Luotenen of CERN and Rob McCool at NCSA to allow people to plug
>stuff into both their servers. While their Netscape server supports
>CGI the prefered way to plug in a module is via NSAPI which is 
>much more efficient because it does not spawn a process for each
>transaction.
>
>CGI is completely inappropriate to standardize in the IETF. It is
>operating system specific and its an API and not a protocol. The
>W3C might have an interest in producing a spec but I would not
>count on it. It might be nice to have a document readily available 
>with Ari and Rob's names on it but it really isn't a technology
>that should be considered leading edge at this point. NSAPI and 
>ISAPI have replaced it, there are many, many such APIs and there
>is no particular reason to consider CGI as a special case even
>if popular Web books have "CGI" on the cover in letters three 
>inch high.
>
>
>		Phill
>
>



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Received on Friday, 30 May 1997 00:43:22 UTC