- From: Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>
- Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:44:55 -0400
- To: Jonathan Marsh <jmarsh@microsoft.com>
- Cc: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com, Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>, www-tag@w3.org, www-xml-linking-comments@w3.org
On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 08:14 -0700, Jonathan Marsh wrote: > AFAICT, the +xml convention does not have normative force on XPointer > compatibility. Each media type must therefore define whether it > supports the XPointer Framework (XPF). I believe consistent > compatibility with the XPF across XML-based media types would be a > good thing. XPointer wasn't nearly cooked when RFC 3023 was written, and I don't believe the notion of XPointer-as-Framework existed when it was going through final revisions. Developers can, of course, apply any flavor of XPointer or XPath to any XML document they like. And creators of new media types are allowed by IETF rules to create fragment identification systems. Those two approaches may or may not overlap. There's an uglier question - which could be addressed in depth for eternity - about the use of fragment identifiers in URI references, which leads me to consider the whole set of connections among these mechanisms broken in practice if not in theory. For a URI reference like: http://simonstl.com/#news The interpretation of the fragment identifier depends on the media type returned. URI philosophers will likely wave their hands and say this isn't a problem. However, in practice the way the fragment identifier is actually processed depends on the underlying media type, which can, er, vary, thanks to mechanisms like content negotiation. (That variation is the good side of thinking in resources, but it complicates fragment identifier processing.) The problem gets more difficult as fragment identifiers grow more specific to particular media types. To modify Jonathan's preferred world: > consistent compatibility with [some approach] across [all] media > types would be a good thing. ...but it isn't going to happen. The +xml set of questions seems to me just a subset of that larger set of issues, and none of it seems likely to go away. Simon St.Laurent Retired editor, RFC 3023 http://simonstl.com/ http://livingindryden.org/ http://lightandsilence.org/
Received on Tuesday, 5 September 2006 15:44:12 UTC