- From: Yaron Goland <yarong@microsoft.com>
- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 17:08:08 -0800
- To: "'Dale Gass'" <dale@ra.isisnet.com>
- Cc: "'w3c-dist-auth@w3.org'" <w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>
I think the argument is more fundamental. The feeling is that URLs point to a single resource. While a resource may have several representations each representation is a semantically equivalent, although possibly degraded, version of each other. Two different versions of a document are not semantically equivalent. While one could make an argument along the lines of "degraded" content, I don't think the argument is very compelling. So Henrik and others are arguing that we should specify version as part of the URL because we are referring to related but distinct resources. Yaron -----Original Message----- From: Dale Gass [SMTP:dale@ra.isisnet.com] Sent: Monday, October 28, 1996 12:55 PM To: Yaron Goland Cc: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org Subject: Re: Refering to versions > I do not believe that URL kludge is the way to go. Rather we need a version > header. Just as one can negotiate on language or content type, one will be > able to use a version header to negotiate on version. (Sorry if some of this is naive or has been covered before; I haven't had time to follow this list too closely.) I had mixed feelings on this; headers do seem cleaner, URL's seem to work better within existing browsers. (Actually, it's not a matter of them working better, it's a matter of them working at all; using headers to specify the version makes going to a specific header via a link impossible in any existing browser). Perhaps what we need is to encourage the browser manufacturers or HTTP standards folk to develop extensions to HTTP to allow specification of versions in links: <A HREF="http://www.mks.com/some/path/index.htm" VERSION=1.3>... or perhaps something more generic, equivalent to the HTTP Response header of the <META> tag: <A HREF="http://www.mks.com/some/path/index.htm" HTTP-EQUIV="Version" CONTENT="1.3"> The browsers would follow this link and insert a "Version: 1.3" header in the request. This would be a much cleaner approach all-round than the URL munging, although it has a serious problem of requiring Browser support. I think the second option above (allowing adding an aribtrary header to a link) would have many side-benefits: <A HREF="http://www.mks.com/NewStuff.htm HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="No-Cache"> Always load this page, never use cached.</A> <A HREF="http://www.mks.com/Secret.htm HTTP-EQUIV="Authorization" CONTENT="basic zcvzckjdfzkdjfzd">Go to secure page</A> <A HREF="http://www.mks.com/International.htm HTTP-EQUIV="Accept-Language" CONTENT="French">Get the french version</A> and so forth... Specifically for versioning, it would allow a great deal of flexibility no only for a Version: header, but for other related headers which would prove quite useful. -dale
Received on Monday, 28 October 1996 20:08:17 UTC