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

On 11/7/07, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
> Mark Baker wrote:
> > As I see it, the message is "turn this URI into some data please",
> > which is safe and idempotent (by definition: all safe messages are
> > idempotent).
>
> Ian replied to this with pretty much exactly what I had been going to say.  I
> just want to reiterate that the idea of "ping" is to track what the user
> selects.  Each time the user selects something, it's a new event that needs to
> be recorded.

I understand, and that's fine.

> Hence it's non-idempotent.

No.  The implementation is non-idempotent, the message is not.

Consider that when my Web server receives GET requests, it logs
(appends) a record of that in a log file.  Does that make the message
non-idempotent and non-safe?  No, of course not, because GET messages
are safe by *definition*.  It does make the implementation both those
things though.

Until this distinction is appreciated, I don't think we're going to
find any further common ground.

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.         http://www.markbaker.ca
Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies  http://www.coactus.com