RE: Nit in section 2.1.1 of httpbis-p1

On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, Brian Smith wrote:

> David Morris wrote:
>>> On 27/03/2009, at 3:48 AM, Barry Leiba wrote:
>>>> As I said on the mic in SF:
>>>> Section 2.1.1 of part 1 is a bit too waffly about IP addresses, and
>>>> what it wants to say is already covered in the meaning of SHOULD
>>>> anyway.  So:
>>>>
>>>> OLD
>>>> The use of IP addresses in URLs SHOULD be avoided whenever possible
>>>> (see [RFC1900]).
>>>>
>>>> NEW
>>>> IP addresses SHOULD NOT be used in URLs (see [RFC1900]).
>
>> Considering the use of IP addresses by legitimate web sites I observe
>> on a daily basis, the OLD wording really is more relaxed and
>> consistent with real world practice than the proposed replacement.
>> I suspect that it is related to some form of load balancing and
>> sticking to the assigned server. Or it might have to do with use
>> of a facility such as Amazon Web Services where making IPs persist
>> across restarts costs money and is more difficult than simply
>> using the known current assigned public IP in the redirect or base
>> tag for subsequent pages. I prefer the OLD form.
>
> Let's just remove the advice completely. It doesn't add any value and if it
> did it would belong in (an update of) RFC 3986, not in HTTP. There is
> nothing HTTP-specific about the badness of IP addresses in URIs.

That alternative is fine with me.

Received on Wednesday, 8 April 2009 20:58:53 UTC