Where do you get this assertion from that methods are post by default? Most http server implementations will reply with a 405 error for an unexpected method.
Servers that just serve static files: yes you are correct. I'm talking about application servers, proxies, etc. You need to decide to do something with a method, but all libraries, servers and clients are ready to handle them and treat unknown methods as unsafe and idempotent (like POST).
If you read my comment as 'QUERY will automatically become POST', that's not what I meant.
> Any good HTTP implementation will support any HTTP method.
By "support", do you mean "will not crash on encountering an unexpected verb"?
WEBDAV and CALDAV rely on a slew of new HTTP verbs; but IME only specialized servers actually support these verbs, in the sense of knowing what to do with them. There's an addon module for Apache that supports WEBDAV, but the logic to support CALDAV is insanely complicated, and nearly all implementations rely on a real database server.
I'm one of the few people who's actually implemented a full CalDAV and WebDAV stack (called SabreDAV). I've started working on this in 2006, and even back then it worked with stock Apache and Nginx, and PHP's REQUEST_METHOD would have the appropriate methods.
You are right, code is needed to 'do something' with the method, but webservers, clients, application frameworks and proxies typically don't need to change for someone to start handling (for example) PROPFIND requests.
The same is true for QUERY. In most (but not all) cases you can already start using it today.
I tried to build a CALDAV stack in PHP. But I didn't want to use a database; I wanted all resources to be files. I made something that worked, and passed most tests; but the RFCs were breeding faster than I could keep up. I wasn't trying to make a product, I just wanted a "simple" calendar server for my own use, and I didn't have the time or inclination. I gave up, and switched to Radicale.
Last week I deployed Baikal; it seems very nice. Well done!
