Re: [draft-nottingham-http-link-header-06] concerns about Link header

On Aug 31, 2009, at 6:52 AM, Sam Johnston wrote:
>
> In summary I think the work around web linking (in Atom, HTML &  
> HTTP) is some of the most exciting development in the space and I  
> would strongly oppose abandoning it. I'd much rather use something  
> everyone else is using than having to roll my own.
>

I vehemently agree!

I am predominatly working on creating HTTP-based interfaces in a non  
human driven environment and the Link header has become an integral  
part of that work. Especially since it allows the server to  
communicate links without the need of minting new XML formats. Linking  
information is in my observation often the primary reason for coming  
up with envelopes for the actual intended payload. It helps a lot  
being able to return a pure (not enveloped) document upon GET and  
still be able to send linking information along.

Jan





> Sam
>
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Anne van Kesteren  
> <annevk@opera.com> wrote:
> I should probably have expressed my doubts earlier, but I don't  
> really have the feeling that implementing the Link header fully per  
> specification is really worth all the effort. In fact, dropping the  
> limited support we have seems like a more attractive option.
>
> Having a UI for the <link> element never really took of in the  
> decade that it existed except for a few special values (which people  
> are bitching about on this list; "alternate stylesheet" is one of  
> the few minor success stories) and hoping that interest in  
> implementing such a thing will revive if we re-introduce the Link  
> header seems misguided. Making the Link header more complex than its  
> counterparts by supporting localized titles also feels way too much  
> like some nice theoretical idea that might be implemented correctly  
> in a few clients but will hardly be used in practice. (It also stops  
> it from being semantically equivalent to the HTML <link> element,  
> but that is not stated. A bug?)
>
> And while obviously lots of thought went into the specification, the  
> primary goal seems to be to getting it to RFC status rather than  
> getting it implemented in clients. There are no test cases, almost  
> no checking of existing applications, almost no requirements for  
> clients in the draft.
>
> This is also not a feature Web authors are asking for as far as I  
> know. (The implementation of the Link header in Opera was more done  
> as a gimmick and in retrospect we should probably not have done it.)
>
>
> -- 
> Anne van Kesteren
> http://annevankesteren.nl/
>
>

Received on Monday, 31 August 2009 11:25:42 UTC