Re: Comments on new conneg draft

Ted Hardie:
>
[...]
>I can tell that I have been talking to government bodies too long,
>as my ability to get across something very simple is obviously
>degrading!
[...]
>In my previous message, my use of the phrase "bound to" seems to have
>made the rest of the text appear to say something I didn't intend.

I guess I'm partly to blame, as I have been using `bound to' without
really defining it.  To me, `bound to' expresses a very direct (and
cachable) relation.  In TCN, variants are not `bound to' the
negotiable resource URI, they are merely `associated with' it.

>I'm trying to get across that I would find it clearer if the
>definition indicated a little more clearly that the transparently
>negotiable resource is a group of selectable variants "under a single
>URL", as the abstract puts it.  How about this:
>
>transparently negotiable resource
>
>	A transparently negotiable resource is accessed via a standard
>	HTTP URL, but allows selection among multiple variants of the
>	resource using the transparent content negotiation mechanism.
>	A transparently negotiable resource always has a variant list
>	bound to it, which can be represented as an Alternates header.

Saying that a resource `is accessed via a standard HTTP URL' is a bit
redundant; all HTTP resources are.  But I guess your point is that
this kind of redundancy is important if people are going to copy the
definition and use it elsewhere.  After some rewriting, I ended up
with:

transparently negotiable resource

     A resource, identified by a single URI, which has multiple
     representations (variants) associated with it.  When servicing a
     request on its URI, it allows selection of the best
     representation using the transparent content negotiation
     mechanism.  A transparently negotiable resource always has a
     variant list bound to it, which can be represented as an
     Alternates header.


Koen.

Received on Friday, 20 September 1996 08:51:55 UTC