Is there any reason not to use HTTP PUT and DELETE

Question

Looking around, I can't name a single web application (not web service) that uses anything besides GET and POST requests. Is there a specific reason for this? Do some browsers (or servers) not support any other types of requests? Or is this only for historical reasons? I'd like to make use of PUT and DELETE requests to make my life a little easier on the server-side, but I'm reluctant to because no one else does.

Answer 1

I've read that some browsers do not support other HTTP methods properly, though I can't name any specifics.

Rails, in particular, will pack your forms with a method parameter to explicitly set this even if the browser doesn't support those methods. That seems like a reasonable precaution if you're going to do this.