Re: FYI: I-D ACTION:draft-dusseault-http-patch-02.txt

Lisa Dusseault wrote:

> ...
>> It also cannot be implemented in general over reverse-proxies which
>> forward requests to different servers depending on the URL.
>>
> OPTIONS * is a difficult problem; I don't really have a solution to it, 
> nor do I know of any consensus on "the right thing" to do about it.  The 
> requirement is only a SHOULD, since obviously some implementations can't 
> do this.

I think it's understood that under many cirumstances, "OPTIONS *" will 
simply not work. Making it a "SHOULD" requirement suggests to clients 
that they reasonably can expect it to work most of the time; however the 
*opposite* is true.

Clients can not rely on "OPTIONS *" working as described, and it's also 
not clear what the value of this feature is. The client can't rely on 
PATCH being available on every resource, nor can it rely on specific 
delta formats being supported on all resources.

As such, it should be a "MAY", or even better, the description should be 
removed altogether.

If you disagree, I'd be interested to hear about a use case where the 
response from "OPTIONS *" will indeed help the client in any way.

Best regards, Julian

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Received on Friday, 21 May 2004 16:05:43 UTC