4xx Client Error (But Not It's Fault)

Erik responds to 4xx Client Error. He writes:

"i don't think it appropriate to phrase it like it's the client who necessarily did something wrong when, for example, a 404 is returned. if you follow a URI that was supposed to be persistent and you get a 404 because the server did something wrong, it's quite a stretch to argue that it's your fault. it's pretty clearly not."

I agree that my emphasis on the client doing something wrong wasn't appropriate (but an extreme position is sometimes nice :-). However, I do interpret RFC2616 to be emphasizing that the burden is on the client. While it is obviously not the fault of the client if some resource currently has no representation available (404) I would not agree that "the server did something wrong". The server is free to stop providing representations for a resource and the client just has to account for that to happen.

What is interesting about this is that the conversation between client and server is not considered broken at all because the fact that 4xx errors might occur is part of the contract (and does not indicate a broken contract). This is one of the advantages of a uniform interface with uniform status codes: it can sustain the conversation even when there is a (temporary) gap in expectations.