- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 13:05:45 -0800
- To: Ray Polk <raypolk@gmail.com>
- Cc: ietf-http-wg@w3.org
On Jan 6, 2012, at 12:59 AM, Ray Polk wrote: > I had a question about the evolution of media types. > > Early media types constrained themselves strictly to describing the format (syntax) of the representation (image/png, application/xml). No, media types have always described the intended MUA (MIME user agent) processing. They are named after data formats because most of the time there is a 1:1 correlation between format and intended processing mechanism. Regardless, for any given data format there are at least two and often three different media types that might apply. For example, most HTML is equally valid as text/html, text/plain, or application/octet-stream. The only difference is how the sender intends that the recipient should process the message. ....Roy
Received on Friday, 6 January 2012 21:25:57 UTC