Transactions

>>ISSUE 3
>>
>>The current protocol does not allow the clients to inform the servers the
>>current context (also sometimes refered to as the environment in
>>cooperative transaction processing literature). This prevents us from
>>implementing long term, cooperative transactions on top of the version
>>control mechanism envisaged in WEB-DAV
>>
>>Response:
>>
>>The transaction protocol being worked in W3C and IETF will address this
>>requirement
>>
>>Reposte:
>>
>>Duh! What we are asking for is different. Do we need to explain this or
>>refer you folks to several papers that describe the concept of
>>environments/contexts in cooperative transaction processing.
>
>The working group has decided on many occasions not to pursue transaction
>support.  To consider adding such a requirement, you need to resolve
>several questions: What features do you want to support with this context
>information?  Why do we need to have WebDAV clients and servers supporting
>this information?  Why are cookies insufficient?
>
>Perhaps posting the papers references you mentioned would help me to better
>understand your position.  Right now all I'm hearing is "we gotta have it"
>without (to my mind) really understanding either "it" or why it is so
>necessary.

I have to concur that generalized transaction support should not be
pursued by this working group.  General transaction support is a hard
problem ("Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" (a good guide
to the issues) is over 1000 pages, not just a journal article).  It will
likely take a look at the whole issue before transaction processing can
be added to HTTP.  (It may even take HTTP 2.0 to do so.)
==========================================================
Mark Leighton Fisher          Thomson Consumer Electronics
fisherm@indy.tce.com          Indianapolis, IN
"Browser Torture Specialist, First Class"

Received on Tuesday, 29 July 1997 06:48:22 UTC