Re: Is 303 really necessary?

Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> On 11/19/10 4:55 PM, David Booth wrote:
>> On Fri, 2010-11-19 at 07:26 -0500, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>> [ . . . ]
>>> To conclude, I am saying:
>>>
>>> 1. No new HTTP response codes
>>> 2. Web Servers continue to return 200 OK for Document URLs
>>> 3. Linked Data Servers have option handle Name or Address
>>> disambiguation using 303 redirection for slash URIs
>>> 4. Linked Data Servers have option to be like Web Servers i.e. do no
>>> Name or Address disambiguation leaving Linked Data aware user agents
>>> to understand the content of Description Documents
>>> 5. Linked Data aware User Agents handle Name or Address
>>> disambiguation.
>>>
>>> IMHO: when the dust settles, this is what it boils down to. On our
>>> side, we're done re. 1-5 across our Linked Data server and client
>>> functionality, as delivered by our products :-)
>>>
>> I think the above reflects reality, regardless of what is recommended,
>> because:
>>
>>   - some Linked Data Servers *will* serve RDF with 200 response codes via
>> slash URIs, regardless of what is recommended;
>>
>>   - some User Agents *will* still try to use that data;
>>
>>   - those User Agents may or may not care about the ambiguity between the
>> toucan and its web page;
>>
>>   - those that do care will use whatever heuristics they have to
>> disambiguate, and the heuristic of ignoring the 200 response code is
>> very pragmatic.
>>
> David,
> 
> Great! We're going to point back to this post repeatedly in the future :-)

I truly hope not, recognizing that some people *will* do whatever the 
hell they please, doesn't make what they're doing a good idea, or 
something that should be accepted as best / standard practise.

As David mentioned earlier, having two ways to do things is already bad 
enough (hash/303) without introducing a third. There's already been half 
a decade of problems/ambiguity/nuisance because of the httpRange-14 
resolution, ranging from technical to community and via conceptual, why 
on earth would we want to compound that by returning to the messy state 
that prompted the range-14 issue in the first place?

Fact is, the current reality is primarily due to the fact there is so 
much confusion with no single clear message coming through, and until 
that happens the future reality is only likely to get messier.

Best,

Nathan

Received on Friday, 19 November 2010 22:58:50 UTC