- From: <jones@research.att.com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 11:44:52 -0400 (EDT)
- To: moore@cs.utk.edu, www-tag@w3.org
- Cc: dorchard@bea.com, www-ws-arch@w3.org, xml-dist-app@w3.org
Here's a quote from a random "web programming" book, which will remain nameless: That's all the coverage we plan to give the GET method. In fact, it's not recommended for most serious CGI programming, because it's limited in the number of characters it can safely accommodate for transfer between the browser and the host to an effective maximum of 255 characters (including the plus and equal signs used for URL encoding). That may sound like a lot, but in a complex form, it's nowhere near enough! In the sections that follow, we'll take a gander at the POST HTTP method, preferred by most CGI programmers for serious data-passing, because it is not subject to the limitations that restrict GET's abilities to transfer data from the browser to the server (and on to your CGI programs). With views like this having been very much in the ether for a long time, it is hard to get the genie back in the bottle. Since there are no guarantees anyway, I think a reasonable middle ground for web services would be to have a standard vocabulary for services to characterize their semantics along many dimensions, including the strict GET/POST distinction. This would be useful across bindings other than HTTP as well. Mark A. Jones AT&T Labs Shannon Laboratory Room 2A-02 180 Park Ave. Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971 email: jones@research.att.com phone: (973) 360-8326 fax: (973) 236-6453
Received on Tuesday, 16 April 2002 11:44:57 UTC