- From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:56:33 -0500
- To: Scott Orshan <sdo@lchome1.beasys.com>
- CC: www-talk@w3.org
Scott Orshan wrote: > Beyond Forms, though, the display of a Web page is not necessarily > idempotent [I hope/assume/infer you're using the term "idempotent" as it was used circa 1992-1994; the modern terminology is evidently "safe". http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/1.1/draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-rev-06.txt.gz ] > - it is not the same thing to retrieve it once as it is to > retrieve it many times. There are simple statistics and counters that would > become incorrect. no crime there; such is life. > Ads would be regenerated. that's a tricky one... one that motivated the hit-counting specs, I believe... > You might repeat the > shopping transaction that you just made. Whoa! Stop right there! A site that uses GET to signal execution of a transaction is just broken and antisocial. I breaks search engines, web accelerators, and web architecture and web social conventions altogether. See http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/get > The act of retrieving > a Web page might cause some physical action to happen - zooming > a camera or shifting a production line forward - not something you > would want to repeat accidentally. Then don't use GET. Period. > I don't know if I've gotten all the nuances right, but I'm sure > you get the general idea. I think you've missed an important point. -- Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/ tel:+1-512-310-2971 (office, mobile) mailto:connolly.pager@w3.org (put your tel# in the Subject:)
Received on Tuesday, 29 June 1999 23:56:34 UTC