Re: HTML5 proposes introduction of new family of URI schemes

On 2012-01-20 10:50, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> Hello Noah,
>
> On 2012/01/20 4:37, Noah Mendelsohn wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 1/19/2012 11:41 AM, Robin Berjon wrote:
>>> Well except that there are quite a few developers, yours truly included,
>>> who really want this functionality. In fact, as indicated earlier, I
>>> find that some parts of it don't go anywhere near far enough.
>>
>> Robin: I'd be grateful if you could explain why using URI templates, or
>> something similar, to pattern match on existing URIs isn't preferable to
>> matching on URIs matching a special "web+" pattern. The drawbacks to
>> web+ seem to include:
>>
>> * Encourages or even requires people to use new schemes, when other
>> schemes might otherwise have been applicable (seems to be at odds with
>> the admonition in AWWW that creation of new URI schemes is strongly
>> discouraged [1]).
>
> I think I tried to explain this to you, but the intent is NOT to have
> new schemas with web+ in parallel to already existing ones. The intent
> is just to identify the fact that a *totally new* scheme can be used in
> Web applications with a web+ prefix. For existing schemas, the current
> whitelist is supposed to cover those that are suitable for use with Web
> applications. So this point is largely moot.

Not really, unless it's easy to change the whitelist (and their 
implementation).

>> * Seems to put the decision as to what client will be used in the wrong
>> place, I.e. with the person or organization that coins the identifier.
>> It should IMO generally be possible to have both Web and native apps
>> handle a given identifier, to change one's mind after the fact, etc. If
>> documents are full of links to "web+xxx:....." URIs, then lots of
>> existing mechanism on the Web doesn't work with them (useless in agents
>> that don't know of the new scheme), and you've committed to a naming
>> convention just because, at this point in time, you think people will be
>> using Web-based implementations.
>
> Using a web+ scheme does *NOT* mean that these schemes are intended for
> exclusive use with Web applications. That would indeed be a bad idea.
> The web+ is just a sign that tells the Web browser that if a Web page
> asks the Web browser to be the responsible "handler" page for that
> scheme, the Web browser is allowed to ask the user. The same applies for
> schemes on the whitelist.

Is it "allowed" to asked, or "required"? If the browser is going to ask 
anyway, why not simple allow all schemes? It's not materially different 
from any application installing a new scheme handler.

> ...

Best regards, Julian

Received on Friday, 20 January 2012 10:30:47 UTC