Given that 400 is bad request, and the client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications (w3.org's emphasis), and 503 means service unavailable, try again later, and can include a retry-after header, would it not have made more sense to change the response code of the REST API to the "more correct" one?
On Dec 3, 10:41 pm, Wilhelm Bierbaum <wilh...@twitter.com> wrote: > In an effort to simplify our APIs, we are standardizing the response > codes returned by our various systems. Historically, the Search API > has returned 503 for rate limiting whereas the REST API has returned > 400. So, we are changing the response codes sent back from the Search > API. > > Starting Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 the search API will respond > with error code 400 in the event that the number of requests you have > made exceeds the quota afforded by your rate limit. > > Please update your response handler accordingly. > > If you have any questions, please feel free to post them on twitter- > development-talk.