Media types and versioning

On 4/23/07, Marc de Graauw <marc@marcdegraauw.com> wrote:
>
> In the minutes it says:
>
> | Marc de Graauw wrote an article on xml.com, spurred in part
> | by our earlier discussions. He proposes you give not a single
> | version, but indicate each
> | version that you believe the document conforms to.
>
> One correction: the gist of what I'm saying is not indicate each version
> sender believes the document _conforms_ to, but each version (or more
> general: language capability) the sender _requires_ the receiver to
> understand.

AFAICT, that's more or less what happens in the existing Web
architecture.  HTTP messages carrying a document also normally include
a media type, which is essentially a name for a series of compatible
versions (e.g. "text/html" as a shortcut for HTML 2 + 3.2 + 4.01 + 5
etc..).

The difference from what you describe there is that the sender isn't
*requiring* the receiver to understand the media type, it simply
declares that the representation is to be interpreted using the
semantics associated with that type.  Minor difference though, I
think.

Mark.

Received on Friday, 11 May 2007 01:04:35 UTC