[gcs-pcs-list] (possible) issue: what to do for redirects?

[Daniel Chudnov]

Xiaoming Liu wrote, on Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 08:20:47PM -0700:
> 
> I have been a little hesitant about this and 406 issue, I wonder if we are 
> getting too smart of dealing with http response code, for several 
> reasons:
> 
> a) it's hard to get all correct.
> b) it may distract implementation and other important topics (such as 
> Eric's comments).
> c) it makes implementation difficult.

I think through implementations and intensive discussion we're finding
out the most correct way.  I don't see "deferring as much as possible
to HTTP" as a distraction, but rather as an objective, and a result many
potential developers would prefer.

How does it make implementation difficult?


> Here I suggest we have a look atom publishing protocol's approach, see 
> section 5.5 of atom publishing protocol 
> (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-atompub-protocol-08.txt)
> 
> 5.5  Use of HTTP Response codes
> 
>    The Atom Protocol uses the response status codes defined in HTTP to
>    indicate the success or failure of an operation.  Consult the HTTP
>    specification [RFC2616] for detailed definitions of each status code.
>    It is RECOMMENDED that entities contained within HTTP 4xx and 5xx
>    responses include an explanation of the error using natural language.
> 
> I am prone to Atom's approach.

How is this different from our approach?  In that perhaps we're specifying
even more than we should?  Or that we should recommend a natural language
explanation as well?  Sorry if I'm just missing your point here.

We're deferring to HTTP status codes as much as possible, too.

  -Dan


-- 
Daniel Chudnov
Yale Center for Medical Informatics
(203) 737-5789