- From: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:28:16 -0400
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Cc: J Ross Nicoll <jrn@jrn.me.uk>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>, www-tag@w3.org
On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Roy T. Fielding<fielding@gbiv.com> wrote: > On Jul 9, 2009, at 6:17 AM, J Ross Nicoll wrote: > >> Roy T. Fielding wrote: >> >>>> That just seems plain false. A 303 does not indicate that something >>>> does not exist. It simply indicates that the server, for reasons which >>>> may be entirely opaque and nobody is under any obligation to explain, >>>> has decided to redirect the query elsewhere. >>> >>> No, we have other redirect codes for that. >> >> As I understand it, 301 (moved permanently), 302 (found) and 307 (not >> modified) all indicate a different location for the resource, never for >> an alternative to it. 304 is "Not modified", and 305/6 are >> deprecated/reserved respectively. So, I don't think there is any other >> redirect code for "Instead of the resource you requested, please see >> this resource instead"... > > The only reason for a server to say "see this other resource > instead" to a GET request is that the person who configured > the server knows that this other resource is not the same as > the requested resource (i.e., not a 301/302/307) and yet wants > the client directed to that resource because it is more responsive > to the client's request than responding with a 404 or 410. > The only way a server can be responsive to the client's original > GET request (i.e., not broken or lying) is if the 303 response > points to a resource that describes the originally requested > resource. Any other result would be pointlessly random, which > would be silly because 302 is already provided for pointlessly > random redirects. "describes", "is about", "has topic" - there are a number of names for the relation of the 303 response to the originally requested resource. I agree with your assessment here and would welcome stronger language in the specifications that make clear this expectation about 303 responses. -Alan > > ....Roy > >
Received on Saturday, 11 July 2009 23:29:21 UTC