Re: Is there any ongoing work on HTTP?

Hello, 

There is one more big deficiency IMHO: 

A POST response does not include the code page of the response. 
i.e. The code page of response is depended on one of the following
settings 

1) Browser setting 
2) Char set settings in header 
3) Char set settings in Meta tag 
4) %Charset in DTD 
5) Accept-Charset in Form tag. 

For intermediate proxies interpreting the information, this is very very
difficult. This is going to be much more an issue with
internationalization... Even if a proxy would be maintaining the state
across a request, the browser setting is the one which is the most
difficult to figure out... 
I can see one intermediate solution, and that is to write some
javascript which queries the browser for that information, and builds a
x- header with that in it. But I think the better solution would be a
standardized method which all browsers have to support... 

This one seems to be between the HTTP and HTML spec, and kinda fell
between the cracks? 

Maurice 

>>> Sylvain Hellegouarch <sh@defuze.org> 05/09/06 8:33 AM >>>

Hello everyone,

The W3 protocols page states:

Now that both HTTP extensions and HTTP/1.1 are stable specifications,
W3C has closed the HTTP Activity. The Activity has achieved its goals of
creating a successful standard that addresses the weaknesses of earlier
HTTP versions.

My question is then simple? Is there any plan to update HTTP after
almost
6 years its last specification has been issued?

As naive as it may sound, the last few years have shown that HTTP was
not
alsways either understood or clear enough on some topics. To name a few:

* The lack of clear separation between an HTTP status code and the
header
sent along the response
* The endless issue about the idempotency or not of HTTP methods
* The real usability of pipelinig (today's networks are not onmes of 10
years ago)
* The usability of 100-Continue
* Is the Accept header efficient

I believe there are more issues of course.

Now some might say these are minor problems and do not require a new WG
process and this is certainly true (I'm a simple hacker with little
knowledge of how the W3 internally works). However I felt intrigued to
know if there were even corridor discussions on that matter :)

Intrigued because HTTP has been becoming more and more heavily used
(internet connections are getting cheaper, globalization of companies
with
offices all around the World, the recent success of REST and
technologies
such as Ajax) and it sounds like a good time to me clarify blurry
topics.

Anyway, just to know if there was any life around HTTP these days.

Regards,
- Sylvain
http://www.defuze.org