Re: HTTP guidelines (was: Re: Language information)

On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> I disagree that fixed-media websites are a fundamentally different case,
> and suggest that even if that is so they are sufficiently prevalent,
> particularly in education, to require the same level of attention.

May I try to clarify this point, please?  As seen seen by the reader,
of course, they are not fundamentally different.  However, as seen
by the implementer, in one case an active server is involved, in the
other case the access is passive.  I return to that point right away.

> I also fail to see that there is something bad about HTTP headers and the
> spoofing of them in document META HTTP-EQUIV is not a good thing.

There are situations where the server is actively performing a
transformation on the data as it is serving them out.  One concrete
practical case relates to "charset" (there's a discussion of the issue
at  http://apache.lexa.ru/english/meta-http-eng.html , but I suspect
this issue will have wider repercussions as Unicode starts to be
deployed, and people discover how to get their server to work with its
various transmission representations).

But there are certainly other situations where the active
participation of the server means that the related HTTP headers can
only be finalised at the time the document is served, and cannot be
statically created in the document (META HTTP-EQUIV) at the time it
is authored, or published to a web server.

But I said that I did not want to press this point over-much, so now I
really will suggest taking it to individual email if someone wants to
pursue this, and if we come up with anything of significance we could
report back.  OK?

all the best

Received on Thursday, 17 December 1998 17:28:49 UTC