Re: First draft of negotiation requirements document

Scott Lawrence:
>
>
>  As one of 'those contributing to that discussion', I'd like to start
>  by thanking you, Ted; very well done.  Aside from the couple of
>  comments below, I believe this sums up the requirements nicely.

Me too.  Thanks for writing this Ted.  I like the requirements: I
think they sum up the basic things nicely without being slanted to any
particular solution.

Some comments on sections 3 and 5.2.1:

Section 3 start of last paragraph:

|Content negotiation based on User-agent strings also creates
|difficulties for caching proxies,

The same problems also exist for negotiation based on Accept headers.

Section 5.2.1 end of first paragraph:

| [TCN] describes a standard method for delineating
|the axes along which a resource varies and a set of methods by which
|caches can participate in the negotiation process.

I assume that you mean that remote variant selection algorithms are in
this set of methods.  In that case, it would be better to write

 `a set of methods by which origin servers and proxy caches can
 optimize the negotiation process.'

Section 5.2.1 last sentence:

|Many times, however, this process [elective negotiation] requires a
|user to actively select among the resources provided, which reduces
|perceived efficiency and increases perceived latency.

I am not sure what you mean by `many times'.  Do you mean `for many
methods of elective negotiation'?  You would always select by hand
with the `click here for...' negotiation method you describe first.
But for TCN, selection is automatic.  A list of variants for the user
to select would only appear if the user asks for it, or in an error
message if the user agent detects that every variant is completely
unacceptable according to its configuration database.

Koen.

Received on Tuesday, 17 June 1997 14:06:10 UTC