Believe it or not, "418 I'm a Teapot" is a legitimate HTTP status code, although it comes with a twist of humour!
It was originally part of an April Fools' joke 🤡 by the Internet Engineering Task Force. This status code was introduced in the "Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol" (HTCPCP) in 1998.
🚫 What Does It Mean?
This quirky status code indicates that the server refuses to brew coffee because it is, permanently, a teapot. Yes, you read that right – a teapot!
🤔 So what's the practical use?
Well, it's not meant to be implemented seriously by servers.
Despite its humorous origins, some organizations and platforms use it as a fun Easter egg.
Some websites use this response for requests they do not wish to handle, such as automated queries.
A famous example is Google's implementation, which can be found here: https://google.com/teapot
While you may not use 418 in your daily coding, it's a reminder of the lighter side of tech and the importance of humour even in technical standards.
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Top comments (23)
Lol this is great
I too had a few great laughs reading about this.
I really love this kind of humor!
In case you're interested: The original IETF proposal is RFC 2324 "Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)" where 418 is mentioned in section 2.3.2.
And of course, not to forget RFC 7168 that extends HTCPCP "to allow communication with networked tea production devices and teapots". 😄
But honestly, I guess when this was invented, nobody ever thought that someday there are really coffee machines that can be operated over network or bluetooth. Sadly none of them supports HTCPCP...
Funny enough, there are really some open source implementations of HTCPCP, e.g. for Raspberry Pi (together with a programmable power strip), so nothing should stop you to set up your own implementation! 😄
Yay, me too! Thanks for sharing the info, Peter!
Loving little odd history nuggets like this! Appreciate ya sharing, Arjun.
I appreciate those kind words, Michael!
Somewhat related is ISO 3103
Oh yea! Thanks for the info.
I have actually implemented this when I hooked up a 1970s-era Teasmade to the network. It ran a little twitter bot that could tweet its status and handle requests to it to make a drink or change the radio channel.
Lmao, I never thought about its use but this is something nice.
My favorite April-1-RFC remains RFC1925. I implement this each and every day.
Well, that's nice. Thanks for the comment by the way!
😃😃🫖
Thanks for the reaction btw. It's appreciated!
AFAIRC was one of the first apps with http at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee the observation of the Coffemachine downstairs ...
I appreciate sharing little chits of knowledge, Holger!
This is golden 🤣! Thank you for the laugh, I'll keep this status code in mind for some good laughs
Haha, yea! I appreciate you writing a comment.
Will definitely have to implement this.
Haha, my first thought was this too!
I am salah follow me
HI
Hi Salah. Greetings!
Thanks for the comment; BUT it's not recommended you comment on other's posts and ask for followers.
It'd be nice if you started sharing articles with the community for some quality followers.
Thanks!
Heyo! Arjun's right. If you make a habit of commenting on other folks' posts for self-promotion, we may need to take action to stop you from doing so.
But, if you wanna meet folks, you can hop into the welcome thread here dev.to/welcome or just respond to the content in folks' posts. That's a great way to meet like-minded folks and make friends!