Re: LYNX-DEV v2.7 pre-release update

[Foteos Macrides]

Les Wallis <address@hidden> wrote:
>This is probably a stupid question but ... what's a cookie? Is it anything
>like an applet?

        No.
        
        A basic explanation of cookies, and what Lynx does or doesn't
do with them is in the v2.7 pre-release online 'h'elp.  You can access
the entry point for that via Subir's "Lynx links" service:

 Linkname: Lynx and State Management (Me want cookie!)
 URL: http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/lynx_help/Lynx_users_guide.html#30

        This form of state manangement was pioneered by Netscape, in
its characteristic, innovative but shabbily done, manner.  The IEFT has
been working with a draft for a more sound and standardized mechanism
of state management, using what are to be called Version 1 cookies, and
intended to be backward compatible with "historical" (Netscape) cookies,
called Version 0.  That draft has been approved as a Proposed Standard
RFC, but is still in the hands of the IETF RFC editor and does not yet
have a number. The (pre-edited) draft is:

        Linkname: HTTP State Management Mechanism (Cookies)
             URL:
 http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/draft-ietf-http-state-mgmt-05.txt


        The author of that draft, Dave Kristol of Bell Labs, just put
out an errata:

        Linkname: HTTP State Management Mechanism (Errata)
             URL: 
 http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/draft-ietf-http-state-mgmt-errata-00.txt

which may or may not be taken into account by the IETF RFC editor.


        There's not much beyond what's in the v2.7 pre-release online
'h'elp which anyone can tell you about cookies with any justifiable
confidence that it's true, or will stay true, or will become true.
It's still being discussed in the HTTP-WG, with no clear indication
of compliance from the "anything that basically works, no matter how
shabby, and sells, is fine" vendor(s).

        It's basically like the situation with FRAMEs, except that the
IETF hasn't walked away from grappling with problems directly affecting
Internet communication protocols, as it has from the problems affecting
standardization of HTML.

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 address@hidden         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
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