Rick Jelliffe wrote:
Thinking about what people are saying about XHTML, and, recasting it in
XML/SGML terminology, it sounds like people want to be able to list the
the notations used in a document, and to have this information available
somewhere in the MIME header to figure out whether a document is
acceptable. (I.e. after content negotiation)
Ummm... There might be some people that want to do that. That's not our
current strategy. Our current strategy is to declare a "profile" somehow
(e.g. in an attribute on the root element, as a parameter to a media
type, a header in an HTTP GET request from a client, ...) We expect
that documents will want to announce their requirements as you have
described, and also that clients will be required to announce their
capabilities. The purpose of this is to enable smarter servers/proxy
servers, content translation and transcoding, etc.
The profile name, likely a URI, can be viewed opaquely or retrieved and
examined. Well known profiles will most likely be viewed opaquely, and
less well known profiles will need to be (automatically and
mechanically) examined to help ascertain the capabilities of the client
or the requirements of a resource.
If it weren't for XHTML, I think this kind of thing would be better kept
out of MIME and made part of the W3C fragments or packaging work.
Well, I cannot speak for the XHTML working group, but I also think this
level of detail should be kept out of the media type. We just want to
present this information in an ancillary way so that
clients/servers/proxies that are instrumented to take advantage of it
can do so.
--
Shane P. McCarron phone: +1 612 434-4431
Testing Research Manager fax: +1 612 434-4318
mobile: +1 612 799-6942
e-mail:
shane(_at_)themacs(_dot_)com
OSF/1, Motif, UNIX and the "X" device are registered trademarks in
the US and other countries, and IT DialTone and The Open Group are
trademarks of The Open Group.