- From: <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 10:43:05 -0400
- To: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
- Cc: Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>, systemsbiology <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org>, www-tag@w3.org
Alan Ruttenberg writes: > Could this specific issue be handled in the http protocol? Could > there be a new response code that in effect says: "Status > 99999999999: The information resource you have requested is too #&%^ > big and the provider has decided that you need to use one of the > following access methods to get at it", followed by a list of > protocols in a manner similar to what lsid provides? I think the answer is not only yes, but something in the spirit of what you ask for is widely done, though not using status codes in the manner you suggest. If you invent a media type, perhaps an XML-based one like application/LSIDBigThingDescriptor+XML and return that with a status code of 200, then you can register a media type handler that will actually use some other protocol to move or access the bits you say are too big for normal HTTP. This sort of thing is done quite commonly for streaming media. Look at what's happening when you link to a variety of audio streams on the Web, and you'll see a fair amount of this sort of thing happening. Noah -------------------------------------- Noah Mendelsohn IBM Corporation One Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 1-617-693-4036 --------------------------------------
Received on Monday, 31 July 2006 14:43:20 UTC