Re: First reactions to mandatory draft

>>>>> "PL" == Paul Leach <paulle@microsoft.com> writes:

PL> 23-Skidoo and 65-SKidoo are _not_ the same header, so they
PL> shouldn't be folded.

>>>>> "SL" == Scott Lawrence <lawrence@agranat.com>:

SL> They are for CGI purposes after the prefixes have been removed (or
SL> are we going to require that CGIs also understand prefixes?).

PL> Of course. How else would you do it? The headers could be changed so that
PL> they were independent of the prefix (change the numeric prefix to the URL of
PL> the extension, e.g.), but the two uses of the same suffix need to be
PL> disambiguated somehow.

  If we consider the case of an implementation that includes some
  number of extentions but does not attempt dynamic extensibility,
  then there should be no conflicts - if I want to extend my server
  with 2 extentions that are incompatible, I'll either do just one and
  forget the other, or I'll try to get them changed to be compatible.

  In neither case do I need to disambiguate the headers dynamically,
  because I just won't do it; I don't think that such a choice should
  mean that I can't use the 'Man' header field (and its siblings)
  mechanism.  Given this constraint (which I think will be the norm
  for a large set of implementors), and if the dynamic prefix
  mechanism is to be left in for the wild experimentalists who need it
  (which I don't object to in itself), then I need a way to respond to
  a message that says 'I understand the extention you declared in the
  Man header, but I don't understand prefixes so send it
  unqualified'.

--
Scott Lawrence           EmWeb Embedded Server       <lawrence@agranat.com>
Agranat Systems, Inc.        Engineering            http://www.agranat.com/

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 1998 09:32:47 UTC