Slide 17 of 20
Notes:
As important as search is in a distributed environment we still settle for performing it through URL munges. While it is true that HTML is a better generic mechanism for searching there is still the issue of discovery. Where does one find search facilities on any random server and once found how does one determine what sort of facilities are provided? HTTP can provide a robust means to answer this question. A Search method allows us to specify where we want the search to occur, what type of searches we wish to perform, and so on.