Re: good practice for clients

>I would also add;
>
>  . Any logs or feedback to the user should state accurately which system
>      is being connected to.
>
>I am continually irritated by Netscape telling me that it is connecting to "ww
>w.foo.bar" when it is in fact connecting to my local proxy cache. I do not bel
>ieve that this does the user any favours, and it all makes troubleshooting tha
>t much harder.
>
>Peter Lister                             Email: p.lister@cranfield.ac.uk

That could also read...

  .  It should be possible to configure logs and feedback to the user either
	to maintain transparency or to enable debugging.

The current lack of any kind of `HTTP traceroute' is occasionally a
problem.  However proxies are, in the general case, expected to operate
transparently, and it may be positively confusing/alarming to be told
that you are connecting to www.foo.bar when you have never even heard
of www.foo.bar.

I think the Netscape behaviour is correct. As long as the browser hasn't
connected to the proxy yet it indicates a connection to the proxy, once
that connection has been established it starts talking in terms of the
remote server. If your proxy is down, it's immediately apparent.

Neil.

Received on Monday, 17 June 1996 10:56:08 UTC