request for new forms submission consensus

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Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 05:48:22 -0700
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9310111248.AA16287@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: request for new forms submission consensus

Can we come to a consensus on a forms submission method that uses
HTTP/1.0 to deliver the contents of large forms (including multiline
edit fields) to smart servers in the next week or two?  (Unless we
already have and I missed it...)

All things being equal, I think I'd be happy with the current encoding
method (name=value&name=value with escaping) just slapped into the
body of an HTTP/1.0 'SUBMIT' request -- keeps things simple and
straightforward, avoids creating a new syntax, is known to properly
handle escaping issues, and servers and code already exist for
decoding/handling it.

To be honest, the idea of encoding it in some kind of SGML format does
not excite me in the least -- what would be the added value?

Also, I'd like to suggest that multiline text fields have a different
type (e.g. "textarea") than single-line fields ("text"), as they
really are different types of things, and imply different issues
(semantics) for client-side handling.

Cheers,
Marc