- From: Jonathan Borden <jborden@mediaone.net>
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 19:59:14 -0500
- To: "David Megginson" <david@megginson.com>, "xml mailing list" <xml-dev@ic.ac.uk>
- Cc: <www-html-editor@w3.org>
David Megginson wrote: > > > Isn't it easier to identify the resource type externally so > that it can be handed directly to the correct processor? > > Assuming that HTML is defined in XML, then isn't the correct processor the XML processor? text/xml correctly identifies the content-type. If you make an exception for the specific XHTML DTD then why not for every DTD! The argument that text/xhtml for content negotiation is a shaky one because the problem of content negotiation is a well known problem for HTTP. Proposed solutions include RFC 2295. A better solution is to employ specific request/response headers e.g. Content-Type: text/xml Content-Document-Type: http://www.w3.org/html50.dtd or, Content-Type: text/xml; document-type=http://www.w3.org/html50.dtd; charset=us The problem with content-type proliferation is that lots of software depends on known content-types. For example, how can you programmatically tell if a MIME message body contains XML? Parse it and if it succeeds then TRUE? Its alot easier to add a new header recognized by new UAs than it is to modify legacy and currently working code. Jonathan Borden http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net
Received on Wednesday, 24 February 1999 20:04:30 UTC