[whatwg] XMLHttpRequest: should UA pretend a 304 response is a 200?

[Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen]

On 3 Jul 2005 at 21:30, Jim Ley wrote:

>> So, should we not tell the JavaScript that a 304 response was 
>> returned, but show the original response including headers? Views?

> Absolutely not!

Thanks for your opinion and arguments :-)
I sort of think it is a bad idea too. However..

> It's trivial to work around

That is obvious. However, *will* people work around it, or will the 
browser that is better at caching documents be at a disadvantage 
because web apps will mysteriously appear broken to the end user..?

I don't think IE ever sends a conditional request for a document 
requested via XMLHttpRequest (I don't know every corner of the HTTP 
caching spec though). If apps are tested mainly with IE and somewhat 
superficially in other browsers, these minor browsers will be 
penalised for their caching. I think faking 200 would be in the 
interest of smaller browsers and make life simpler for JS authors 
under most conditions (I don't see much of a use case for wanting to 
know about the 304 response..)
-- 
Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen
http://www.hallvord.com/