Caching and status codes

[John Cowan]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 5:11 AM Philip Linde <linde.philip at gmail.com> wrote:


> I think that's the advantage of bie's suggested solution. It doesn't
> require any breaking changes, and a client that doesn't recognize the
> difference between codes 20 and 21 will still be fully compatible with
> a server that does.
>

I agree, except that I am in favor of code 22 meaning "It is inadvisable to
cache this", on the assumption that most Gemini documents are static and
will continue to be so.  Even on the Web, most documents are static.  If
there is to be just one new code, better it should be 22.  If people feel
strongly about 21, then both 21 and 22.


> There can be different codes roughly representing different cache
> lifetimes. "PERMANENT" for things that should stick on the disk until
> the user (or user configured policy) removes them. "SESSION" for things
> that stick for the lifetime of a browsing session.
>

That seems to me too complex for a client to interpret.  What is a browsing
session, if I always keep my client running?  Note that "don't cache" can
also be interpreted as "don't mirror", which is often an important point
when dealing with living documents.  There are an awful lot of broken
mirrors of Wikipedia out there.




John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than
he that the Wall had no other side.
        --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Wall of Darkness"
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