ACTION-832: Look at what the impact on the document would be if we removed the definitions referred to in LC-2050

This action was inspired by LC-2050, which was a suggestion to use more
formal methods to define "restructuring", "recoding", and "optimizing"
tranformations.  We decided in the teleconference that we should try and
determine if we even need these definitions since the sense was that
they are underused in the document.

"Restructuring" of content is mentioned in the following places:

Section 1.4 (Summary of Requirements), requirement 2.a.
-------------------------------------------------------
"The Content Transformation proxy needs to be able to tell the origin
serverthat some degree of Content Transformation (restructuring and
recoding) can be performed."

Section 2.2 (Types of Transformation), operation 2.a.
-----------------------------------------------------
Definition of "restructuring content".

Section 4.1.5 (Alteration of HTTP Header Values), point 2
---------------------------------------------------------
The "the user has specifically requested a restructured desktop
experience" clause.

Section 4.1.5.3 (User Selection of Restructured Experience)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Guidelines for presenting a restructured desktop experience.

Section 4.3.6 (Proxy Decision to Transform)
-------------------------------------------
Heuristics to help determine when a response should be restructured or
recoded.

Section D.5 (Amendment to and Refinement of HTTP)
-------------------------------------------------
Mentions that HTTP does not provide a method distinguish between
restructuring and other types of transformation; e.g., to prohibit
restructuring.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

"Recoding" of content is mentioned in the following places:

Section 1.4 (Summary of Requirements), requirement 2.a.
-------------------------------------------------------
"The Content Transformation proxy needs to be able to tell the origin
serverthat some degree of Content Transformation (restructuring and
recoding) can be performed."

Section 2.2 (Types of Transformation), operation 2.b.
-----------------------------------------------------
Definition of "recoding content".

Section 4.3.6 (Proxy Decision to Transform)
-------------------------------------------
Heuristics to help determine when a response should be restructured or
recoded.

Section D.5 (Amendment to and Refinement of HTTP)
-------------------------------------------------
Mentions that HTTP does not provide a method distinguish between
restructuring and other transformations; e.g., to prohibit restructuring
but not recoding or compression.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

"Optimization" of content is mentioned in the following places:

Section 2.2 (Types of Transformation), operation 2.c.
-----------------------------------------------------
Definition of "optimizing content".

Section D.5 (Amendment to and Refinement of HTTP)
-------------------------------------------------
Mentions that HTTP does not provide a method distinguish between
restructuring and other transformations; e.g., to prohibit restructuring
but not recoding or compression.  ("Compression" here is used as a
synonym for optimization--for consistency purposes, the use of
compression should be changed to optimization.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Conclusions:
------------
It looks to me that we need some way to distinguish between
restructuring (the most drastic type of content transformation) and
other less severe transformations.  Reason: We need to talk about the
"restructured desktop experience" and be able to lament that HTTP
doesn't have a way to distinguish between restructuring and other types
of transformations.

I'm not sure that we need separate categories for recoding and
optimizing.  These categories have a lot of similarities (they don't
change the formatting of a page; they don't change the semantics of a
page).  The optimization category is defined but then not really used
anywhere in the document.  We could probably lump optimization in with
recoding to make one category and cause minimal damage to the document.

Unfortunately these conclusions don't help with the original issue:
should we define restructuring and recoding more formally?



Sean

Received on Monday, 8 September 2008 23:33:55 UTC