Re: Should the HTTP protocol become "inapropriate"

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 7:39 AM, Booth, David (HP Software - Boston)
<dbooth@hp.com> wrote:
>> From: Paul Prescod
>> [ . . . ]
>> Is it the position of Tim, Mark and David Orchard that it would be
>> wrong? Dangerous? to define a mechanism for embedding hints for
>> alternate resolution protocols inside of HTTP URIs?
>
> No, it is not wrong.  It is fine to embed hints of any kind in HTTP URIs.  (I realize you didn't ask me, though.)

Can you be more specific about "hints of any kinds?" Do you believe as
I do that that there must be an orderly mechanism for recognizing and
processing those hints? e.g. a browser vendor could not declare that
any URI that embeds the path /netscape/ should be resolved at
netscape.com rather than on the host specified in the URI.

I believe that the three current proposals are:

 * use the most specific bit of the domain name as a way of triggering hinting

 * use the least specific bits of the domain name

 * invent a new convention in paths like /foo:/ which would allow the
hint to be orthogonal to the HTTP domain

 Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 28 July 2008 15:53:52 UTC