RE: Minutes from 4 Feb 2002 TAG teleconference

>SW: In general, is the MIME type redundant information? Can
>it always be derived from the content (e.g., what about
>mixed content that might validate in different ways)?
>
>Reply: No, one cannot always derive a unique media type by
>looking at the content.

Just a couple of examples while I'm thinking of them:
* Our Corporate Technical Memory contains a complete description of itself,
so we have instances where the source for a Perl program should be
transmitted as MIME text/plain so that neither the server nor the browser
should interpret the data as a Perl program.
* Tutorials need to transmit data in forms other than their standard
interpretation -- for example, an SVG tutorial should transmit the SVG files
to be examined by the student as text/plain (or possibly text/xml).  Having
the browser interpret that data as SVG defeats the whole purpose of the
tutorial.

<resume lurking mode...>
===============================================
Mark Leighton Fisher            fisherm@tce.com
Thomson multimedia, Inc.        Indianapolis IN
"Display some adaptability." -- Doug Shaftoe, _Cryptonomicon_