Re: Authentication

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Message-id: <9304192312.AA03646@knowman.lib.ucsf.EDU>
To: www-talk@lib.ucsf.edu
Subject: Re: Authentication 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 16:13:47 MDT
From: Christopher McRae <mcrae@lib.ucsf.edu>

Nathan Torkington writes:
> HTTP2 ideas:
> 
>  -- tracking changes
> 	I should be able to ping a document and get a unique
> 	value back (cf md5 or snefru) to see whether it has
> 	changed or not.
> 
> Nat.

  I would like to know not just whether a document has changed, but also what
about it is new/different.  This could be done by managing documents via
SCCS or some similar system which tracks modifications over time.  The client
could then request any particular version(s) of a document which are available
and display the results in some appropriate fashion (highlighting, different
fonts, etc).  A client may choose to keep a version history of previously
visited documents.
  This sort of functionality would require support in both HTML and HTTP, I
believe.  There needs to be some notion of the "current" or default version
of a multi-version document in the URL syntax.  The protocol should
provide some mechanism for the server to inform the client which versions
are available.  
  And then, of course, there's the issue of how to inform a "subscriber" that
an updated version is available.
Chris
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