Re: HTTP at a glance

On 28.02.2012 10:23, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
> On Feb 27, 2012, at 2:33 AM, Amos Jeffries wrote:
>
>> On 27/02/2012 10:54 a.m., Fiona Schmidtke wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I've just put together a simple website [1] that tries to explain 
>>> HTTP at a glance for all the web developers out there that do not 
>>> care about HTTP at the moment. (e.g. that ones who use GET and POST 
>>> methods interchangeably and state something like "POST is safer than 
>>> GET, because it does not append the data to the URL").
>>> It would be nice if someone could have a look and give some 
>>> feedback, as I don't know if I have covered most of the important 
>>> things that such new developers should get to know. Please don't be 
>>> too harsh to me, as I'm new to the topic, but I'd like to give my 
>>> best to contribute to the understanding of HTTP.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Fiona
>>>
>>> [1] http://semfact.github.com/httpataglance/
>>>
>>
>> Nice.
>>
>> Three nitpicks though:
>> + PUT is replace or create a resource.
>> + POST is send some data to a script or service. NOT create, that is 
>> one of the big mistakes web dev make today which needs fixing.
>
> No, POST can create resources.  The only difference is that the
> client doesn't
> know how the resource(s) will be identified after being created.


Only in so far as a script being capable of doing anything it likes. 
There is always a processing layer required on the POST. To convert from 
POST data format and location to whatever the created resource format 
and name is an implementation detail.

At the level of simplification that document has it's clearer to say 
simply "send some data", glossing over details of what the 
script/service implementation could potentially do with the data.

AYJ

Received on Monday, 27 February 2012 23:07:00 UTC