Re: [Fwd: Toward more fully-formed options]

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>Yes, I think you've missed the possibility of the server not sending a
>response within a timeframe that the client deems suitable.
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That seems like a failure to me.  At least, it seems that for our
present purposes we can abstract this under the same rug as network
failures, server crashes and whatever else.  If I send an HTTP request,
either an HTTP response comes back or something bad happens, and for our
purposes it doesn't much matter just what kind of bad thing happened.

On the other hand, if the server gets my request, doesn't like it and
sends back a fault, that's a response.  The distinction is basically the
distinction between checked and unchecked exceptions (faults are
checked, failures are unchecked).  In this respect, what constitutes a
failure is to some extent a matter of definition.  I'm basically
asserting that any result other than an HTTP response (in a timely
manner) should be treated as an "unchecked exception".  This is open to
discussion, which is one reason for trying to state the assumptions
explicitly.

That said, I'm pretty well convinced that any result other than an HTTP
response coming back should be treated as a failure.

>Mark.
>--
>Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.       http://www.markbaker.ca
>Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies  http://www.coactus.com
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