Let’s get the AMAs kicked off on Lemmy, shall we.
Almost ten years ago now, I wrote RFC 7168, “Hypertext Coffeepot Control Protocol for Tea Efflux Appliances” which extends HTCPCP to handle tea brewing. Both Coffeepot Control Protocol and the tea-brewing extension are joke Internet Standards, and were released on Apr 1st (1998 and 2014). You may be familiar with HTTP error 418, “I’m a teapot”; this comes from the 1998 standard.
I’m giving a talk on the history of HTTP and HTCPCP at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin later this month, and I need an FAQ section; AMA about the Internet and HTTP. Let’s try this out!
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What’s your take on the fediverse frontier?
I think it’s excellent out here. I was stuck on Reddit for the longest time, and this recent debacle has pushed me to explore the networks at the edge; this feels a lot more like the Internet of old. The analogy of email is apt, I think, with the accounts on multiple servers and the interplay between.
You awaken my nostalgia, curiosity and sense of adventure when you say “explore the networks at the edge”. Are there any other networks than lemmy / mastodon that you would suggest checking out?
Internet Relay Chat’s been one of those things that’s always felt out on the edge. I’ve been on EFnet since perhaps '03, and it’s a lot quieter than it was…
With people moving en masse away from the centralized sites and their Firebase-implemented chats, we may see a pick up in traffic on the IRC networks, which would be good to see.
What are some interesting channels on EFnet? I basically grew up on Foonetic, but moved to Slashnet when #xkcd did. I don’t pay near as much attention to IRC as I used to, but would like to change that
I haven’t been exploring in the depths of EFnet in …many years. I’m confined to the programming-related channels I found in the Way Back When, nowadays: at the moment, #c is probably the most active and it’s almost all old-timers.
Are you tingly anywhere?
I have no questions, but I want to let people here know that there are two excellent websites related to this: http.cat and http.dog, for looking up HTTP status codes.
For an example, if http.cat/418 doesn’t brighten your day, I don’t think there’s much that can.
I love this. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome! I try to share this with people whenever I can, hoping that it makes someone’s day better. It certainly gives me a lot of joy when I can respond to something with a relevant http cat, though the few people I do it to might be getting a little annoyed.
Is the internet still kept in Big Ben?
Yes, unless Jen needs to borrow it for a presentation.
Thank you for fixing a critical flaw in the original RFC.
What did you think about the Save 418 Movement? Were you involved in it in any way?
My endorsement is at the bottom of that page, in fact. I wasn’t an active campaigner, but a word in favor was the least I could do.
Oops, RTFM. Well, thanks for fighting the good fight with the power of your reputation.
A new RFC for IPv7. It’s just IPv4 with an extra octet. Yes or no?
I don’t think the extra address space of IPv6 is the problem holding back its adoption, so “IPv4 with another octet” would likely run into the same issues.
Not that it’s a bad idea, it’s just an idea that’s unlikely to catch on.
What would you say is holding IPv6 back?
The biggest problem IPv6 has is that IPv4 has been so hugely successful: gargantuan resources have been poured into getting the world connected on IPv4, and the routers/etc deployed in the field (especially in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and other places which got the Internet late) are built around version 4: data paths 32 bits wide, ASICs and firmware developed with 4-byte offsets, and so on.
It’s a big effort, and more importantly an expensive effort, to move all that infrastructure over for what the end user perceives as no benefit: their websites load just the same as before.
Are you saying there’s no financial incentive at the individual level to upgrade?
Essentially. If the end user is being asked to make a financial outlay to get to the same things they did before, it’s unlikely that will go down well.
I loved sharing this with my senior who hadn’t seen it before, and it gave our small team a Ggod chuckle one afternoon. Thanks for your creation.
With the absence of a crystal ball, but with excellent inner knowledge, what future standards could you see being implemented in the next 10 years for internet?
As it turns out, one of the Apr 1st RFCs for this year covers AI Sarcasm Detection, but I can see more serious protocols arising for the transfer of AI model data and/or training procedures in the coming years.
I’d also hope ActivityPub reaches Internet Standard level, though it may fall outside the IETF’s scope of operations.
Well there is really only one question…
Pineapple on Pizza?
Out.
Can’t stand pineapple at the best of times, on pizza is another level of wrong.
Hear hear
Getting really tired of this meme
Yes, obviously. Where else should it be at if not my pizza?
What a fun AMA topic lol. I dont have a question, I’m just glad youre here, spreading the good gospel of your goofy internet standard
What’s the funniest legitimate non-joke standardization detail you’ve come across?
I enjoy that the original draft for the Referer header spelled it wrong, and now we’re all stuck with the typo forever…
Can someone elaborate on this please?
Edit: oh jeez. I’m so used to reading “referer” I didn’t even realize it was a typo.
I’d be happy if we’d just accepted “referer” as the correct spelling for everything, but instead we have the “Referrer-Policy” header, so now I need to check the correct spelling for anything involving referring…
I do sort of like the idea that because we want to keep backwards compatibility on software we just change the language instead since that’s easier.
What code should be used if we are expecting something to be a teapot? In this scenario it seems a 4XX is inappropriate because there is no error
If you’re writing a TEA-compliant client, you’d send the BREW request and expect a 300 Multiple Options back, whereby the server will tell you which teabags are installed. You’re correct that there’ll be no error, unless all the bag stocks are out server-side.
That’d return 503 Service Unavailable, of course.
Do you regret adding it, or with the knowledge you have today, would you still add the 418?
Since a bunch of languages have not implemented it, or/and has long discussions about it:
https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/15650
https://github.com/golang/go/issues/21326
https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/14644
https://github.com/psf/requests/issues/4238
https://github.com/aspnet/HttpAbstractions/issues/915You’d have to catch up with Mr Masinter to get his opinion on adding error 418, I’m afraid; that piece of the business wasn’t my work.
I’m happy it’s there though: it may have sparked flamewars, but at this point what hasn’t. It does bring somewhat of that sense of humanity to the whole enterprise of working on the Internet.
I remember when I first learned of error 418 and it did really help me understand that the Internet as we know it was made and shaped by regular people with senses of humor. Helped make it seem a bit less daunting/intimidating to understand.
It reminds me of how the Network Port 666 is specifically reserved for doom, always love Easter eggs like that in officially used protocols.
I’m just finding out about this trivia now but I’m a big fan
I remember when I learned about this, I was working on an absurdly large project on my own. I was lost in all the details and losing hope of ever finishing. I was working on the backend API when I learned of this and took the time to implement the 418 response. It felt silly and brought the fun back to the project.
Sheesh, some people have no sense of humour.
Personally I don’t have any problems with it (if that was directed at me) - I’ve added 418 as “unhandled exception code” response to a bunch of applications, so I can easily differentiate whether my application is throwing an error, or whether it’s some middleware gateway AWS io-thing
I was just curious what OP thought about it, since in the early days it wasn’t uncommon to add goofs or easter-eggs into software, but nowadays not done so much… and apparently the “HTTP Working Group” doesn’t like it either… So I was curious whether OP though in hindsight whether it should’ve been added or not
How can it be unhandled? It’s right there in the song, just before the spout!
Not a question, but we use 418 in production! We have a nginx router that routes pages based on its path to either old frontend or new frontend. I wanted some easy way to handle the routing (and to not repeat myself), so I set the new frontend as a handler for 418 error and then just return 418 in the nginx for any page I want on new UI. I chose 418 because the others could be actually used by the old frontend and it could get all weird.
This is actually a good use of 418 in production, and one I’ve come across before: if you need to perform some custom handling and throwing a HTTP error is the only sensible way to do it, 418 is always available.
Unless your server really is a coffeepot, which is …unlikely.
Getting more likely with each passing year.
I need an ELI5 for this I’m a stupid Gen Z
I need one too and I’m a stupid Gen Y
As a late millennial and a programmer, I’ve got you.
So when you request a web page, before anything else, the server gives you a 3 digit status code.
100s means you asked for metadata
200s mean it went ok
300s means you need to go somewhere else (like for login, or because we moved things around)
400s mean you messed up
500s mean I messed up
So this is in the 400s. Each specific code means something - you’ve probably seen 404, which means you asked for a page that isn’t there. And maybe 405, which means you’re not allowed to see this
418 means you asked for coffee, but I’m a teapot
I can’t say enough how amazing your explanation was. Im not a programmer but I have worked on websites (self taught) and I never knew this. Thank you!
Are you by any chance, British?
What a British thing to ask. Very apt sir, very apt.
Did the predilection for tea give me away?
We’re there any early internet standards you were super bullish on at the time that didn’t get picked up? In retrospect, if it had been adopted do you think it would have had the impact you were hoping for
That’s a tough one: most standards are codified as such because they’re already seeing wide use. The major example of one that’s been worked the other way around is IPv6: it’s been a standard for a very long time, and still doesn’t seem to be seeing adoption.
Of course, I wouldn’t say I was bullish on IPv6. 32 bits is enough for anyone, right.
