Re: Feedback on the ping="" attribute (ISSUE-1)

Mark Baker wrote:
> On 11/7/07, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
>> Can we agree that for ping a series of identical messages is NOT in fact the
>> same as just one?  And that therefore ping is not idempotent?
> 
> Hmm, no.  I agree that the server won't behave idempotently, but the
> ping messages themselves have to be idempotent and safe because they
> came to be as a result of a user clicking a link.

OK.  Either I seriously overestimated our level of common ground or you're 
disagreeing just for he sake of disagreeing.  I don't see what the "clicking a 
link" part has to do with the question I posed.  I'm just looking at the 
messages on the protocol level.  As defined and meant to be used, the ping 
messages are not idempotent.  Most trivially, the number of pings matters; in 
fact that's the whole purpose of ping.

Now if your claim is that clicking on a link must never result in non-idempotent 
messages being sent to the server, that's a separate issue.  We'll get to 
discussing that once we've established some sort of common ground.  For now, can 
we agree that as currently defined the ping messages are not idempotent?  And 
leave what they "have" to be out of the discussion?

If you still disagree, I'd like to know why, in detail, without words like 
"should", "have to be", "ought to be" thrown in.  Let's stick to "are".

-Boris

Received on Wednesday, 7 November 2007 06:14:09 UTC