Re: a bad idea (fwd) -Reply

>>> "Marc Salomon" <marc@ckm.ucsf.edu> 07/15/96 12:29pm >>>
>|The problem with many of the proposals offered here is that they are
not
>|general enough to allow the browser proper selection of the most
desired
>|URL. Different URLs may differ in access time, proximity, language,
data
>|format (e.g. GIF, JPEG, PNG), compression (e.g. none, zip, gzip, etc.),
>|size, charset, etc.
>
>Part of this could be solved in HTTP with multiple attempts at content
>negotiation for each alternative and need not be expressed in the
>container document.
>
>You outline a very large problem that, in order to be addressed most
>fully,
>would need a solution along the lines of the URN/URC efforts. 
>Attempting to
>overload HTML with the descriptive features of reasonably complex
>metadata
>scheme is a Bad Idea.

Except (and this is a very important except), this has application outside
the context of HTTP and other document transmission schemes. For
example, if documents are stored on a network (an Intranet without a
dedicated server), or on CD, or even on an FTP server then HTTP
content negotiation is of no help. The functionality should be handled at
the HTML or the URN level. (And should be integrated with HTTP content
negotiation where appropriate.)

>If resource replication going to be addressed in HTML or its
>successors, it
>should be kept brain-numbingly simple.  Otherwise it should be fully
>fleshed out in another forum and available to the user agent through a
>LINK.

I agree that alternate document sources should either be enabled via a
very simple extension to the appropriate tags (HREF, IMG, OBJECT, ...) or
via a more comprehensive solution using LINK as Dan suggested.
However I can't think of any forum more appropriate than this one.

______________________________________________
Jim "The Frog" Taylor, Director of Information Technology
<mailto:jhtaylor@videodiscovery.com>
Videodiscovery, Inc. - Multimedia Education for Science and Math
Seattle, WA, 206-285-5400 <http://www.videodiscovery.com/vdyweb>

Received on Monday, 15 July 1996 21:05:55 UTC