Re: Indicating a resource does not exist

[Nathan <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Robert Sanderson wrote:
> Which is surely all that the server can say?  The resource might exist in
> the future. It may have existed in the past, but when in the past? Certainly
> not before 1994...

Okay, I can live with "doesn't exist at the time of this request", 
that'll work.

> A server that supported Memento [1] might be able to say that it *didn't*
> exist at a particular time, but that's not the same as "doesn't,didn't and
> never will exist".

Was looking for "doesn't and didn't exist (to this servers knowledge)", 
not the never will exist.

Thanks all.

> Given the lack of the time dimension in HTTP without Memento, 404 seems the
> correct status code.
> 
> Rob Sanderson
> Los Alamos National Laboratory
> 
> 1: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-vandesompel-memento/
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 8:19 AM, Tim Williams <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Nathan <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> Joe Gregorio wrote:
>>>> What's wrong with 404 Not Found?
>>> The best you can conclude from that is "don't know" the state of the
>>> resource, or if there is one.
>> It's not clear why you think that's all you can conclude.  I would
>> have concluded that the origin server couldn't find a resource by that
>> identifier at the time of the request. Maybe I'm not understanding the
>> nuance of "doesn't exist" vs. "not found".  404 is saying it doesn't
>> exist *at the time of this request*, right?
>>
>> --tim
>>
>>
>