[whatwg] [rest-discuss] HTML5 and RESTful HTTP in browsers

[Joshua Cranmer]

Mike wrote:
> The benefits? Oh I don't know.. a markup language that supports the 
> transfer protocol it runs on?!
Who says you have to serve HTML over HTTP? I see it served via email 
(and newsgroups), local filesystems, and FTP on a regular basis. Indeed, 
making HTML depend on HTTP-specific features sounds like A Bad Idea™ 
(and if you retort XMLHTTPRequest, let me point out that I personally 
would have objected to injecting HTTP specifics into that interface, had 
I been around during the design phases).

To follow your arguments to the logical conclusion, HTML would have to 
have special attributes to deal with circumstances within email 
messages, specific attributes to handle certain filesystem-specific 
abilities, or quirks of the FTP protocol. I think you'll find such a 
position untenable; ask yourself then, why limit it to HTTP?

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth