--On May 5, 2005 10:53:48 AM -0700 John Panzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I assume an HTTP Expires header for Atom content will work and play well with > caches such as the Google Accelerator (http://webaccelerator.google.com/). > I'd also guess that a syntax-level tag won't. Is this important?
The syntax-level tag is useful inside a client program with a cache. It can reduce the number of requests at the source, rather than reducing them in the middle of the network at an HTTP cache. There is extra benefit from putting that info into the HTTP headers, because the HTTP cache is shared between multiple clients. The source webserver sees one GET per HTTP cache instead of one GET per Atom client. The syntax-level tag also provides a way for the feed author to specify the info without depending on webserver-specific controls. It does depend on some extra bit of software to take that info and put it in the HTTP Expires or Cache-control headers. wunder -- Walter Underwood Principal Architect, Verity
