Problems to Solve
Version number communication
I would like the version number to be communicated at the
start of every request and every reply. [The communication is
forseen for te request. Putting it in the reply would have to
mean "I realise your request is v4 but I am doing my best to
interpret it as a v2 request". An alternative is to reply
"Sorry, please rephrase your request in V2 HTTP" -TBL]
A browser or server that uses an out of date version of
HTTP will notice this when communicating with ones that use
newer versions. A request to upgrade can be sent automatically
to the user. These requests must not disturb the user, so there
must be an option to save them on a file or to silence them,
once they have been noted. [Or maybe just reduce them to once a
week :-) ]
Arguments eg. to GET should be quoted, so that
spaces and quotes in them are allowed. This may be especially
useful for lists of keywords, which may evolve into lists of
commands etc. [Whatever delimiter we use must be escaped.
Currently, spaces are converted into + signs, which in turn
have to be escaped. The escaping function should be general
thoughout W3 as it is needed whenever we convert between
different ranges of allowed character sets. Beware of getting
into a mess with this a la VMS. You have to know exactly when
something is officially escaped and when it is not, so that you
can reverse any mapping, quoting, escaping, the right number of
times!] Quotes around strings and doubling quotes to signify
embedded ones seems to be perfectly reversible.