My own prejudice would favor a protocol based upon a single client request
and server response, without requiring either the server or client to
maintain persistent state about an ongoing transaction. Not only would such
a protocol facilitate embedding in alternate transport methods (such as
mail, as mentioned previously), a simple protocol would facilitate
implementations where servers dispatched client requests to peers or other
surrogates for processing. Also I might suppose that the simpler protocol
would be more robust in practice.
Before moving in the direction of a more complex transaction-oriented
protocol, some champion needs to assume the responsibility for making the
convincing argument for inclusion in the protocol rationale.
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Robert J. Chansler
chansler@adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Mailstop P 8
303 Almaden Blvd.
San Jose, CA 95110-2702
408 536.2295
Fax 408 537.8037