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Comment by nonethewiser | Hacker News Reader

Its rather funny, isnt it. But I wonder what the context is. Why they added it.

It was added as a joke, and kept because (according to https://save418.com)

> “It's a reminder that the underlying processes of computers are still made by humans”

Stupid reason imo. Adding childish humor to a protocol seems like harmless fun until you remember how much of a mess network protocols, and their specs, and their implementation is. Maybe you think a 418 error page is funny, but I think you’ll appreciate it a lot less when your application gets a rather confounding error because some service provider wanted to remind you that the underlying processes of computers are still made by humans, rather than implement the actually correct response.

/me slaps AmericanChopper around a bit with a large trout

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trout_slap

That’s trout abuse.

It's (presumably) more humane than whipping some llama ass.

I thought it was handling fish under discuss m suspicious circumstances.

...

Nope, it's still funny, we're keeping it.

I promise that knowing it’s supposed to be a joke is _not_ going to make you less frustrated if you ever end up having to debug a non-descriptive 418 error. To make it worse the description and the error code aren’t even consistent. 4xx is a client error, but your web server being a teapot is definitely a server side problem.

No, it should be a client error. The error is intended to be returned when a client has asked a teapot to perform a coffeepot-only operation - which is obviously a mistake on the client side.

This makes it similar to 405 Method Not Allowed, 406 Not Acceptable, or 426 Upgrade Required.

Sure, but I’ve actually had to debug a few 418 errors on production workloads, and none of them involved teapot services. Knowing that the implementers of the error thought it was a hilarious joke certainly didn’t make the experience more fun.

Nope, it’s still unfunny, it should have been deleted then and there. In fact, it has.

No, it's a great canary in the coal mine. Anyone who doesn't implement proper handling of 418 gets their general error handling facilities tested (4xx).

What is the correct way to handle a 418? As if it were a 500? A 400? A 403? A 404? A 429?…

418 is a class 4xx error, which means the client erred and shouldn't repeat the request as-is. That is, any unrecognized error beginning with a 4 must be handled as if it were the base error class, 400, "Bad Request".

> the server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error (for example, malformed request syntax, invalid request message framing, or deceptive request routing).

Must be fun at parties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_...

Started off as an April's fools joke, people liked it enough to keep it in.

It was an April Fools Joke

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