"On Linking Alternative Representations..." should mention Alternates and Content-Location HTTP headers

Dear TAG,

Looking at TAG finding "On Linking Alternative Representations To  
Enable Discovery And Publishing"
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/alternatives-discovery-20061101.html

I see a number of excellent ideas, with which I agree.
- The notion that every representation of a resource should have a  
URI is crucial
- The idea that negotiation can be used to access a variety of  
representations through a generic URI  is often overlooked
- The suggestion to have all representation-specific URIs available  
and linked to from the Web is excellent

I think, however, that the document could be improved by giving  
actual and practical examples in HTTP.
In particular:
- please add a mention of Content-Location: (from rfc2616).
   This header is precisely made to identify the specific URI of the  
representation, even if the resource is accessed through a generic,  
negotiated URI. The finding should definitely mention this header.
- please add a mention of Alternates: (from rfc2295, rfc4229, etc.)
   The finding mentions the Vary: header. Good. But Vary does not  
give the actual URIs of alternate representations, which is the point  
here. Alternates: is what you want in this context.

Thanks,
-- 
olivier

Received on Friday, 10 November 2006 07:26:43 UTC