Subject: draft-snell-http-prefer-17 feedback

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:42:20 +0100

Hi there,

reminder: this draft has changed considerably since IETF Last Call. See 
the diffs over here:

<http://tools.ietf.org/tools/rfcdiff/rfcdiff.pyht?url1=http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-snell-http-prefer-17.txt&url2=http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-snell-http-prefer-14.txt>

And yes, that's a huge diff considering the size of the document.

Comments:

1) s/Prefer header field/Prefer header filed/

2) I don't think it's a good idea to use currently unregistered media 
types in the examples (application/json and text/patch)

3) In Section 1:

>    Another option available to clients is to utilize Request URI query-
>    string parameters to express preferences.  Doing so, however, results
>    in a variety of issues affecting the cacheability of responses.

That's misleading, as the presence of query parameters (per spec) does 
not affect the cacheability of results (see also 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2012OctDec/0040.html>).

Otherwise, the changes look good to me.

Best regards, Julian

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 10:36:03 -0500

> 1) s/Prefer header field/Prefer header filed/

What?  Julian, was this just a brain-blip, or do you mean something I
don't understand here?

> 2) I don't think it's a good idea to use currently unregistered media types
> in the examples (application/json and text/patch)

I agree.  It's not a big deal, but it'd be better to come up with
examples that use properly registered values.

Barry

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:12:55 +0100

> What?  Julian, was this just a brain-blip, or do you mean something I

Um, sorry:

s/Prefer header filed/Prefer header field/

> ...

Best regards, Julian

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From: James M Snell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 09:35:06 -0800

I can address these issues during Auth48...

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From: Martin Thomson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 14:48:12 -0800

On 4 December 2012 01:42, Julian Reschke <[email-masked]> wrote:
> That's misleading, as the presence of query parameters (per spec) does not
> affect the cacheability of results (see also

That is true in the strictest sent.  But I think that this is an "in
spirit" clause.  If the intent is to retrieve:
  http://example.com/foo
with prefer: wait=5, then asking for
  http://example.com/foo?wait=5
will result in a cache entry against the latter URI, just as
  http://example.com/foo?wait=3
will create another cache entry that are all equally useless to the
requester pulling down the "unmodified" URI.

Any change needs to be aware of the strict interpretation, but make
this implication obvious.

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 18:08:51 -0500

...
> If the intent is to retrieve:
>   http://example.com/foo

How about this:

OLD
Doing so, however, results in a variety of issues affecting the
cacheability of responses.

NEW
But any mechanism that alters the URI can have undesirable effects,
such as when caches record the altered URI.

Barry

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:17:54 +0100

> such as when caches record the altered URI.

Works for me.

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From: Martin Thomson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 11:49:06 -0800

>> such as when caches record the altered URI.

Yes.

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From: James M Snell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 11:52:51 -0800

+1..