Re: Indicating a resource does not exist

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Nathan <nathan@webr3.org> wrote:
> Joe Gregorio wrote:
>>
>> What's wrong with 404 Not Found?
>
>   404 Not Found
>   ...
>   The server has not found anything matching the effective request URI.
>   No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or
>   permanent ...
>
> The best you can conclude from that is "don't know" the state of the
> resource, or if there is one.

It's not clear why you think that's all you can conclude.  I would
have concluded that the origin server couldn't find a resource by that
identifier at the time of the request. Maybe I'm not understanding the
nuance of "doesn't exist" vs. "not found".  404 is saying it doesn't
exist *at the time of this request*, right?

--tim

Received on Thursday, 20 January 2011 15:20:08 UTC