Re: feature negotiation syntax

On Wed, 14 May 1997, Larry Masinter wrote:

> Feature tags should not be names. It is just this kind of
> discussion that makes me oppose their use in PEP and content
> negotiation, despite their otherwise appeal as a quick-to-deploy
> registration space.
> 
> I'd rather see feature tags just be FQDNs; anyone who
> has enough omph to want to deploy a feature tag can
> just get a subdomain, e.g.,
> 
>      fancy-tables.feature.netscape.com
> 
> and then we have no need for the %NN discussion.

1) Domains are costly. Some communities may not want to
	have to afford them.

2) As Koen has pointed out in a previous mail, some tags can
	also have values. And as Koen says, it's there that
	things such as internationalization can come in very
	handy.


This is really the point where people that try to reduce syntax
complexity by introducing limitations can learn something.
What happened e.g. with URLs is that they were not intended
(at least by some) as something people would use. But they
got used because they were usable. That then lead to the
demand for internationalization. It's very difficult to
claim that something will not go that way unless you are
really strict and go back to something such as numbers only.

Regards,	Martin.

Received on Wednesday, 14 May 1997 10:03:58 UTC