- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 22:06:15 PST
- To: W3c-dist-auth@w3.org
(forgive the extensive quotes, but I'm moving a conversation back onto the WG mailing list): Jim: > > > > There seems to be a tradeoff here between making the server > > > > responsible for understanding the structure of the resource > > > > (inherent in this proposal, VTML, and PATCH) and making the > > > > client responsible for understanding the structure (Goland > > > > proposal). When the server understands the structure, > > > > the client can send more structured updates (e.g., change > > > > this line, or change this section). When the client is > > > > responsible for understanding the structure, the update > > > > seems to require a reduction to the least common > > > > denominator structure across all media types, i.e > > > > octet sequences. > > > > I don't think we'll be able to reach consensus on this issue > > > > unless we identify which tradeoff is best for DAV (and why). Yaron: > > > Why would we need to make a tradeoff? It looks to me like each solution > > > addresses a different scenario. Larry (privately): > > Yaron, you cannot avoid making the tradeoff. If the client > > can't count on the server understanding the structure, then > > the client must comprehend the structure in order to make > > edits. There's no other choices. > > > > If you support both, then you have to support knowing which one > > you're in. Yaron (privately): > Sounds like we need a feature to find out if the server understands and > enforces the syntax and semantics of the resource. I see two possible > solutions. One is to define a method which takes a content-type and > returns a yes or no answer, yes if the server enforces the structure and > semantics of the resource, and no if it doesn't. Otherwise we need to > leave it to the meta-data folks to define pieces of meta-data the client > can query to determine if the server understands the resource's syntax > and semantics. > > However, I believe, that in the 99% case the situation will work as > follows. The client talks to the server and finds out the content-type > of the document recorded at a URI. If the client doesn't know that > content-type then it can only modify the resource by doing a STRUCTURE > call and hoping it understands the members of the resource. However, if > the client does know the content-type, then it will manipulate the > resource directly. Larry: Whether the server understands the structure of a resource does NOT depend on the content-type. For example, a server might know about assembling HTML from components, but not know about the structure of those components. A server might be able to parse some postscript files (those that follow document structuring conventions) and not others (those that do not.)
Received on Sunday, 23 March 1997 01:30:55 UTC