[wp-hackers] Google Web Accelerator

[David House]

On 25/10/05, ifelse <wordswithstyle at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "change the returned content based on past user interactions..."
>  I think there's a misunderstanding of the spec. There's nothing wrong with
> canging the returned content. That's a given. The key thing is that GET
> requests are idempotent i.e. a single execution of the entire sequence
> always yields a result that is not changed by a reexecution of all, or part,
> of that sequence. Packaging a delete in a get request is clearly not
> idempotent.

That's exactly it. GET requests are fine, as long as they don't commit
any changes to the server. That means tailoring your response to the
GET query vars isn't misuse; it's exactly what the spec says GET is
for. However, changing things, like deleting posts/comments is advised
against.

However, it's worth pointing out that what we're doing isn't contrary
to the spec. It says SHOULD NOT, not MUST NOT. This has been discussed
over and over again on this list and the bottom line is that GET is
easier. Committal GETs are actually quite common; we're not the only
people doing this.

--
-David House, dmhouse at gmail.com, http://xmouse.ithium.net