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HTTP, HTTPS, and Beyond

Figure: A typical couple engaging the rituals of courtly love on honeymoon night.
[width=5cm]CourtlyLove

The quixotism of courtly love, as codified in rules set down by Andreas Capellanus in his $12^{th}$ century manuscript De Amore, are to modern eyes, well silly. These ``rules of love,''

  1. Marriage is no excuse for not loving.
  2. A male cannot love until he has fully reached puberty.
  3. Love rarely lasts when it is revealed.
  4. When a lover suddenly has sight of his beloved, his heart beats wildly.
  5. ...
however ridiculous to modern tastes, allowed for a principled interaction of the suitor and the suited. The suitor and suited knew these rules and knew what actions they implied. The interplay between the suitor and suited were well defined, so much so that each knew when and what to say, each knew when and what to do, and each knew the import of each step in this pavan.

The same thing can be said of the protocols HTTP and HTTPS. Each defines a rule set, the rules of the internet modern dance of courtship, which lay down the behavior of a client-suitor and his suited-server. In this dance of internet courtship, these rule sets define the exact behavior of the client-suitor and his suited-server. As in the case of courtly love, these rule sets, HTTP and HTTPS, are so well defined that the client-suitor and his suited-server know exactly what to say, exactly what to do, and the exact import of each step in this modern dance.


Subsections
next up previous contents
Next: HTTP Up: Basic Web Concepts Previous: Who are You?   Contents
Andre Merzky 2004-05-13