Learn Web3 in 100 Days - Day 3: What are HTTP Status Code

Why are there status codes for HTTP? You may wonder about the purpose of those status codes. Let’s explore more on what may become logic beyond those codes.

TL;DR

What are the Status Codes

Classifications of Responses 

HTTP Standardized Protocol

Notorious 404

Trivia Reason

Angel 404

404 Curse

The Truth

How It Matters in Web3

What are the Status Codes

The status codes are responses after the server’s and client’s communication results. Similar to a human being who responds with language to another human being's communication, the computer talks with numbers. There are 5 classes for the standard response in HTTP.      

Classifications of Responses  

It is categorized with the beginning of the digit.   

1xx means successfully received the request and continuing processing

2xx means successfully received

3xx means further actions required

4xx means client errors found

5xx means server errors found

Your computer is a client who tries to request a service from the server in the remote. Just to keep that in mind.

HTTP Standardized Protocol

Remember the Ethereum protocol? A protocol is a set of rules that lay out the foundation of how the program should behave. Thus, those categories of responses are part of the HTTP protocol you expect the computer should follow.

Notorious 404

Image Credit: https://uxplanet.org/404-page-design-not-found-how-to-create-great-error-pages-cfc43c4fa95f

People are anxious to see page 404 because it is an error page which got nothing there. It is a common reaction of 404 as a disappointment that something does not operate the way it should or was missing. 

Why 404 then? Does it look like SOS in a backward fashion or for other trivia reasons?

Trivia Reason

The first argument is that 404 is coming from Room 404. The story was the World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and co-developer Robert Cailliau were working on the 4th floor of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland) and their server was located in Room 404 dated back then. 

Later, Robert Cailliau denied the theory and stated that it was nonsense!

Angel 404

If you are into spiritual and Tarot Cards, 404 means lucky that Angel is around you. It is a message from guardian angels that help to point you in the right direction.

404 Curse

404 may also link to a tragedy like aviation accidents and incidents. 

Aviation accidents and incidents:

1973: Japan Air Lines Flight 404 got hijacked and killed 12 people.

1989: Pakistan International Airlines Flight 404 disappeared with a total of 54 people after taking off about 16 minutes.

1990: Alitalia Flight 404: crashed and killed 46 people.

The Truth

The 404 is probably nothing but a code from the programmer to interpret the status of the server.

First digit 4: means an error from the client.

Second digit 0: means error from the general purpose

Third digit 4: means specific error family 

How It Matters in Web3

Web3 has its own protocol and the error code is different from HTTP. However, it serves the same purpose of noticing programmers what went wrong and how to fix it. 

In conclusion

You can now understand how the status code works and 404 interesting histories.  

The next topic I will touch on is web2 and wbe3 in general.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Resource

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

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/Evolution_of_HTTP

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status

https://umbraco.com/knowledge-base/http-status-codes/

https://www.wired.com/story/page-not-found-a-brief-history-of-the-404-error/

https://historyofyesterday.com/the-history-behind-the-404-error-missing-link-4f8824d63154

https://realart.com/thought-lab/history-404/

https://www.ted.com/talks/renny_gleeson_404_the_story_of_a_page_not_found#t-71887

https://numerologynation.com/angel-number-404/

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

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

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

https://docs.cryptoapis.io/errors-and-rate-limits/index?http#error-codes