RE: Meaning of Alt

Ray Fergerson wrote:
>
> My confusion on this issue is the result of the following two
> passages:
>
> -------------
> M&S, section 3.1:
> Alternative might be used to provide alternative language translations
> for the title of a work, or to provide a list of Internet mirror sites
> at which a resource might be found.

Emphasis on "might", when it comes down to the wire, I can't say that I can
define "Alt" in any way other than "one of a set" ... given that people have
so much trouble deciding whether two URIs are "equivalent" (unless they are
string literally equal), I doubt that even after thousands of messages, we
would be able to get a really good definition of "Alt" beyond "pick one in
the set"

> An application using a property
> whose value is an Alternative collection is aware that it can choose
> any one of the items in the list as appropriate.

	"Appropriate" for what? Appropriate for a particular application it seems
is decided by the application.
>
> M&S, section 3.2
> An Alt container is required to have at least one member. This member
> will be identified by the property _1 and is the default or preferred
> value.
> -------------
>
Again, in the absence of a strict, and hence meaningful, definition, I would
allow applications to decide how they might use "Alt", (within bounds of
reason :-)))

Jonathan Borden
The Open Healthcare Group
http://www.openhealth.org