Slide 5 of 20
Notes:
As HTTP is turned into a generic information transport protocol it takes upon itself a wide variety of functionality. This has caused growing pains as HTTP’s original specification called for it to remain as simple a protocol as possible.
This presentation will suggest introducing a number of new methods and headers. Their purpose is two fold: To help clearly define functionality and to allow servers to easily choose what functionality they wish to support.
Different servers have different roles and will not need to support all of HTTP’s functionality. By carefully compartmenting different aspects of HTTP we give servers the freedom they need to pick and choose functionality.
This presentation will also suggest method specific headers. HTTP has strived to achieve orthogonality between its headers and methods but as HTTP’s functionality becomes richer orthogonality becomes a hindrance rather than a boon. Shall we create a History method when we can have a Get specific History header?