Re: [web-annotation] Dropping type from ... what?

@shepazu let's move this particular debate to a different forum. 
:smile: Party thoughts below.

> In 1996, when that was written, the Web didn't have many features 
that it has today. Today, we have webapps and the FileReader API.

FileReader API, fwiw, is about the file system and not Web related. 
It's a point where the user agent does something other than the 
Web--hence the need to support other ways of doing things than 
`Content-Type` headers, etc.

> W3C Recommendations regularly include file extensions, such as 
*.svg:
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/intro.html#MIMEType

Right. For SVG files stored on a file system.

>HTML5 defines an algorithm that includes the concept of file 
extensions, in 4.8.3 "Downloading resources":
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/links.html#concept-extension

Correct. For downloading files to a filesystem via a browser.

> IANA includes a file extensions as part of the registry for a MIME 
type:
https://www.iana.org/form/media-types

Yep. This registry is not just for the Web or HTTP or email. It's also
 for file systems which use extensions in place of content 
negotiation.

> IETF defines file name extensions in RFC6838:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6838#section-4.12

Right. Again, these registrations have a wider use than just the Web 
or email. It's also been being done this way since at least 1996: 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2048#section-2.2.9

> File extensions are not universal, but it is a pragmatic heuristic 
for many resources on the web, if there's no other way to get the MIME
 type.

There are a few ways to do media type detection. There need to be 
more.

> It's pedantic to pretend otherwise.

Hardly. https://github.com/BigBlueHat/this-is-not-a.pdf

Happy to chat (elsewhere) about it more fully if you'd like. It's an 
important feature of the Web that's kept it ticking for as long as it 
has. Breaking it has some wide reaching consequences.

-- 
GitHub Notif of comment by BigBlueHat
See 
https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/67#issuecomment-135538928

Received on Thursday, 27 August 2015 20:10:31 UTC