Re: FW: LC Comments: Web Method Feature

Mark Baker wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 02:28:56PM +0100, Marc Hadley wrote:
> 
>>Your reply is puzzling, are you are claiming that POST and 
>>GET don't describe how entity bodies are exchanged -
> 
> The meaning of GET and POST, don't, no.

    --->

    GAP

    HEAD

> But in the context of the
> connection-based HTTP 1.1, GET and POST do inherit some restrictions
> that impact the MEPs that can be used.
 >
Great, I think we are getting somewhere. So, in the context of the HTTP 
binding (which is what we are talking about here) you would agree that 
the use of GET and POST is not orthogonal to the MEP in use ?

> For example, HTTP 1.1 says that
> a request has a single response, that the response has to appear on the
> same connection as the request, that response ordering has to match
> request ordering on persistent connections, etc..  So any MEP would have
> to account for these things when using HTTP.  But some other application
> protocol that does GET and POST might come along (like Roy Fielding's
> "Waka") and it might not have those same restrictions.
> 
It sounds like you are drawing a distinction between an abstract 
conceptual GET operation and the implementation of that operation in 
HTTP. Unfortunately both are being labelled with the name 'GET' so it is 
difficult to tell which one you are referring to in any given sentence. 
If my surmise is correct I would be interested if you would care to 
layout the areas of commonality and difference between the two. E.g. 
does the conceptual abstract GET share the restrictions of HTTP GET that 
the information retrieval must be safe ?

> I hope that's clear, because it's my best stab at explaining it. 8-O
> 
Not really, but I think we are making progress.

> 
>>doesn't the 
>>description of POST say that it can carry an entity body in the request 
>>and response whereas GET can only carry an entity body in the response ?
> 
> 
> Sure.  But that only impacts the ability to transfer a SOAP message, not
> the pattern with which it is exchanged.
> 
But in the HTTP binding we match MEPs to HTTP methods so the HTTP method 
has to be able to support the MEP...

Regards,
Marc.

-- 
Marc Hadley <marc.hadley@sun.com>
XML Technology Centre, Sun Microsystems.

Received on Monday, 8 July 2002 11:23:06 UTC