Re: Does idempotence include the response codes?

On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Gili <cowwoc@bbs.darktech.org> wrote:
> Yes. Adding "on the server" and an example would definitely help.

IMO, misunderstandings of this sort will continue so long as people
fail to understand that idempotence and safety are properties of the
request message alone, and are independent of implementation
behaviour. Short of a minor treatise on it - a generalization of
p2-4.2.1 2nd paragraph (re safety) perhaps (which I'm *not* proposing)
- I don't think it will help, but may cause further confusion because
of the mention of the server.

That said, if consensus is for this addition, perhaps it should be "on
the origin server" since, e.g., cache behaviour needn't be idempotent
for idempotent messages, and is rarely safe for safe messages.

Mark.

Received on Thursday, 17 October 2013 05:20:42 UTC