Re: Negotiation issue list

koen@win.tue.nl (Koen Holtman) writes:
>Here is a list of negotiation issues, which I propose for addition to
>the HTTP Working Group Issue list.  I compiled this list using several
>sources.
[...]
> - Can we make a feature negotiation mechanism that does not put
>   pressure on browsers to send long lists of features in every
>   request?
>
>   Status: Yes, Koen Holtman will write up a specification of such a
>   mechanism.

Koen,

I may have a partial solution to the 'long list' problem. Note that one of
the features of the modular DTD format is that each module has entities
declared within:

  1. module version (as FPI; eg., '-//IETF//ELEMENTS HTML 2.0 Lists//EN')
  2. feature negotiation keyword (eg., 'ietf-html.list-20')
  3. module standards status (a text literal, one of):

            'Experimental'      all proprietary, unregistered or
                                non-standards track components
            'Internet-Draft'    IETF standards-track components
                                carrying an RFC number and/or
                                registered with IANA.
            'Proposed-Standard' IETF Proposed Standard
            'Internet-Standard' IETF Internet Standard

   4. module expiration date (matches I-D or RFC expiration date;
                              used only as appropriate)

Additionally, the DTD as a whole also declares these four entities. So for
HTML 2.0 (FRC 1866) we have:

   1. version:              '-//IETF//ELEMENTS HTML 2.0//EN'
   2. feature keyword:      'ietf-html.list-20'
   3. status:               'Proposed-Standard'
   4. expiration:           '01-Nov-1996'

So for feature negotiation, you wouldn't need to specify each and every DTD
module, simply the overall DTD plus any added extensions.

Adding Dave's latest tables would be (I'm guessing a bit):

   1. version:              '-//IETF//ELEMENTS HTML 2.0 Tables 0.6//EN' (?)
   2. feature keyword:      'ietf-html.tables-06' (?)
   3. status:               'Experimental'
   4. expiration:           '01-Mar-1997'    (?)

Murray

______________________________________________________
    Murray Altheim, Program Manager
    Spyglass, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts
    email: <mailto:murray@spyglass.com>
    http:  <http://www.stonehand.com/murray/murray.htm>

Received on Tuesday, 27 February 1996 15:12:52 UTC