> I'm trying to get a feel for the current state of play regarding remote
> publishing via the Web. I would appreciate if anyone can fill in any
> gaps. So far I've got the following:
>
> - PUT and POST have been in HTTP/1.0 for a long time although largely
> unnused. (The latest Internet draft (12-May-95) [1] however refers
> to "current implementations of the POST and PUT methods" (7.2) - where
> are they?).
Um... no, not really. PUT is largely unused, but POST is used almost
every time you use a HTML form. It's in very wide use.
> - The current implementations I am aware of are the "intelligent
> publishing environment" from Georgia Inst. of Technology [2] and
> the Symposia editor/browser [3] from Grif and INRIA.
>
> - a method for file upload does not yet seem to be agreed upon although
> there is a draft proposal [5] from Nebel, Masinter at Xerox.
> (Several questions over the past few months on www-talk on this).
Yes. True.
> - the CERN server supports PUT/POST via external scripts (this is used
> by Symposia). Symposia documentation implies that more complete
> support in the CERN/W3O server is on its way [4].
The external script support in these servers (which, btw also applies to
the GET and DELETE queries) is an optional feature that doesn't have much
use. However, the CERN httpd and the other major ones (like NCSA) let you
use any method you like for CGI scripts, and most of those are
POST-based.
> And some questions:
>
> - are there any browsers supporting file upload and PUT (aside from
> Symposia)?
No browser I'm aware of supports either file upload or PUT.
> - are there any servers with generic PUT and POST support other than
> CERN httpd?
generic? the CERN httpd doesn't really have generic support... it has
hooks for such support, but...
> - when can we hope to see broad support from clients/servers?
Never. :-) It really isn't all that neccessary. Especially with the
forms-based file-upload draft, that makes for a much nicer interface than
a generic PUT-compatible client.
> - is forms-based file upload a prerequesite for remote publishing using
> current Web browsers?
No current web browser supports forms-based file upload that I'm aware of, so...
--/ Alexei Kosut <akosut@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us> /------------/ Lefler on IRC
--------------------------------/ <http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~akosut/>
The viewpoints expressed above are entirely false, and in no way represent
Alexei Kosut nor any other person or entity. /-----------------------------