A difference that makes no difference is no difference

[Russell Turpin]

Mike Dierken writes:
>But they don't change BECAUSE you did a GET.

You don't know that. In fact, I bet the designers of
these sites don't know that. Designers of complex
websites rarely do the analysis that would be required
to ensure this. (For that matter, if the spec is
phrased this way, it is a truly awful requirement.
Determining causality for a system with boundaries as
fuzzy as a website quickly runs into philosophical
problems. Is the network administrator who makes some
change because of perceived changes in traffic a part
of the website? Or not? If your GET was the request
that triggered some traffic threshhold, then is any
change from this "because" of your GET? Speaking as
someone who has done a modicum of formal semantics,
I shudder. Such a requirement is so interpretively
vague, that the subject line of this thread proves
itself quite appropriate.)

Russell



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