> not least during the infamous "hey, we built this massive web framework in part around the incorrect assumption that GET requests don't need to be idempotent and then encouraged everyone to use it" time.
Tell me more. I remember when Rails was first released but missed that entire saga.
It is so long ago now that I can't even find stuff about it on Google -- 2006 I think?
Basically, well after they'd released the framework they had to change the Rails scaffolding (and I think their own apps) because parts of the scaffolding (CRUD deletes) would use GET to do the action that should only be done as POST. They discovered it about the time link-prefetching was invented ;-)
Basically, browsers were pre-fetching all the clever scaffolded delete URLs and destroying records, seemingly at random.
I was really impressed with Rails at the time but stayed well away from the scaffolded code in production, and I was gobsmacked by the idea that people talking about a clever, opinionated framework that did the right thing and produced magical, clean, elegant code to rescue you from terrible alternatives did not understand that GET requests should be idempotent.
Tell me more. I remember when Rails was first released but missed that entire saga.