HTTP 418 and Beyond: Having Fun at Work Boosts Productivity

Did you know about the HTTP status 418, “I’m not a teapot”?

This status code is a part of an April Fools' joke specified in RFC 2324, Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0), published on April 1, 1998. The RFC was an April Fools' joke by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), proposing a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots.

While HTTP 418 is not used in real-world applications and is not part of standard HTTP status codes in actual web servers, it is sometimes used in mock implementations or for educational and entertainment purposes.

For example, in Spring we can do it by creating a ExceptionHandler for your ImTeapotException 😆

@ExceptionHandler(ImTeapotException.class)
public ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail> handleResourceNotFoundException(ImTeapotException ex, WebRequest request) {
    ProblemDetail problem = ProblemDetail
            .forStatusAndDetail(HttpStatus.I_AM_A_TEAPOT, "I'm a teapot");
    return new ResponseEntity<>(problem, HttpStatus.I_AM_A_TEAPOT);
}

Did you know this HTTP status code? Have you ever used it?

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

– Dale Carnegie

That's why tech folks love making jokes like the HTTP status code 418, “I'm a teapot.” Having fun at work should be part of the job 😁 it keeps things creative, boosts morale, and reminds us that enjoying what we do is key to success.