[thelist] AJAX problems in IE (WAS: Re: "firebug" for IE?)

[Lee Kowalkowski]

On 24/08/07, Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 10:08 -0400, Brian Cummiskey wrote:
> > Turns out, IE caches GET requests, which causes the 2nd try to not do
> > anything. I had to run a browser check, and send IE with a POST, and all other
> > browsers with a GET.
>
> If I read right, you should be using POST across the board. Duck-tape
> half-solutions like this one *will* come back around and blow up on you
> when you're least ready for them.

I agree that browser detection is not a sound call, but nothing in the
thread indicates to me whether POST or GET should be used, but POST
should be reserved for updates.  If you're just fetching data, GET
should be used.

Hold on yes, the "firebug" for IE thread says that AJAX is being used
to add items to a shopping cart, that it definitely a POST operation
I'm afraid.  Shawn is correct.

> (There are caching proxies that will cache GET as well. Not that they,
> or that Microsoft's OS-component-they-try-to-pass-off-as-Web-browser,
> should, mind you, but that's a whole different rant.)

It's quite reasonable to cache GETs, providing caching directives are
honoured.  If the query string is different, it's a different
resource, the complete URI identifies a resource (minus the fragment
identifier).  I don't know any working caches that don't do that.

-- 
Lee