RE: Content negotiation for request bodies

Adrien de Croy wrote:
> David Morris wrote:
> > This should reduce error case to a few stupid servers which don't 
> > provide proper clues.  Tring what is likely to succeed based on 
> > history with the server or its application peers will 
> > actually have a very low error rate.
>
> I can't even begin to imagine the administrative nightmare of 
> trying to provide proper hints in a redirect about 
> capabilities of some other server.

Then don't provide any hints. That is the current state of things
anyway.

> Why put all that burden (support in software for the feature, 
> admin burden to configure it, and ongoing maintenance burden) 
> onto millions of people when you can solve it in the protocol?
> 
> As a gross generalisation, heuristic solutions to problems 
> when a deterministic solution exists are generally more 
> trouble and effort than they are worth.

I agree, but what is the deterministic solution?

As long as a client's assumptions are pessimistic (ex: "compressed
request bodies didn't work when posting to http://example.org/foo the
first time I tried today, so I'm not even going to try to compress any
requests when posting to that URL for the rest of the day"), then no
harm is done.

- Brian

Received on Sunday, 24 February 2008 19:02:04 UTC