> Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 11:50:27 -0400 > From: Ray Denenberg <[log in to unmask]> > > > > We explored all of this, in great depth, at our first meeting a > > > year ago. There was strong sentiment not to do this as it would > > > be a futile effort to define negotiation that wouldn't work in > > > practice anyway. > > > > Why not? > > This is my recollection of the thinking when we discussed it a year > ago: servers in general aren't going to be flexible enough to alter > their behavior based on the user request, nor even to reject the > request in advance. I don't understand why we should compromise our protocol for the benefit of such broken servers. > In other words, optimally, if you had such a flag, you'd want the > server to make the result set persistent if you asked it to; but > lacking that, at minimum, you'd want the sever to tell you if it > cannot honor the request. The thinking was that as a practical > matter servers can't even do the minumum, so a flag would not only > be useless, it would be misleading. Then these misbegotten piles of bits are simply not worthy to be called SRW servers, surely? We are _defining_ the protocol here. Let's not give up on getting it right before we've even started. _/|_ _______________________________________________________________ /o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ "But I remember ... Three lions on the shirts; Jules Rimet still gleaming" -- Skinner, Baddiel & Broudie, "Football's Coming Home" ^ | | Ah, how appropriate.