On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 09:14 -0700, Bob La Quey wrote: > > So, SMTP qualifies as loosely coupled because you can replace either side of > > the system (MUA or MTA) and it still works. Similarly, web servers and > > clients. > > Correct the WWW is loosely coupled, because HTTP is stateless.
So let's follow this to its logical conclusion: - Since it wouldn't add state, if I added a requirement to HTTP that all requests must be sent in HDF5 format and all responses must be sent as Word documents (but the server can send back documents from any version of Word ever made), that wouldn't make it more tightly coupled? - No matter how many different response codes, commands, encodings, schemas, mandatory behaviors, etc., we add to HTTP, so long as we don't add more state, it'd be loosely coupled? - The WWW is loosely coupled, so it is trivial to write a client that actually works with Yahoo mail. - The number of states is all that matters, not the complexity of the state transitions. So, for example, a protocol with 40 states, but only one state transition possible between each state, would be more tightly coupled than anything that has been talked about in this thread? I'm sorry, but having lots of states does make your validation process more extensive, but it is not necessarily mean you have tighter coupling. --Chris -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
