Re: Recent spec change to XMLHttpRequest default Content-Type

Carsten Orthbandt wrote:
> Julian Reschke schrieb:
>> You're violating a SHOULD level requirement of HTTP/1.1 then. Sorry, but
>> that's what you get for that :-).
>>
>>> - I definately dont want to see future browsers choke on that
>> Actually, I'm tempted to say it would be good for the web if more UAs
>> would flag missing content-type headers.
>>
> 
> I tend to disagree.
> SHOULD means "there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to
> ignore a particular item".
> 
> The (IMHO) valid reason here is:
> - redundant header overhead
> - the UA isn't even meant to interpret the response, so it doesn't need
>   any information on how to parse it

I think I have to disagree here.

HTTP messages carry a content-type header for many reasons; just because 
you don't think it's needed in your case, and feel it makes the response 
too big, isn't sufficient to leave it out.

And yes, the *UA* is meant to interpret the response; it's the recipient 
of the response. In this case, the UA (as defined in RFC2616) is the 
combination of the browser + the client-side scripts running in it.

Best regards, Julian

Received on Friday, 15 June 2007 08:01:17 UTC