If the application layer wishes to provide hints that particular features
should be avoided, then that would be fine - provided that the HTTP
implementation is permitted to ignore the hint. The same goes for
cacheing
- it needs to be hints from the application, not control.
I don't mind if the wording is such that all the API level properties are
treated as hints/suggestions for the underlying HTTP subsystems, that is
fine. Letting the core systems have the final say seems appropriate. But
without these hints a number of important capabilites of emerging web
technologies are being severely hampered. XHR already has a lot of
relatively low level capabilities including access to and modification of
headers (which can be overriden by the underlying subsystems). At least
hinting at expectations of long-lived responses and optimum pipeline
orderings does not seem out of line with what XHR is.
Thanks,
Kris
