Re: httpRange-14 Change Proposal [editorial tweaks]

I'm fairly neutral on the meat of the proposal : I don't think it's
necessary, but then augmenting existing material with 'describedby'
does seem a good idea.

But I do believe it needs some editorial tweaks around this:

"...a 200 response to a probe URI no longer by itself implies...that
the response is a representation of the resource identified by the
probe URI"

- especially alongside -

"Rather than simply telling these people that they are Doing It Wrong..."

Instead of telling the people that aren't aware of the distinction
made by httpRange-14 they are doing it wrong, in its current wording
the proposal amounts to a redefinition of resource and representation,
which tells *everyone* that's followed the specs since around RFC2616
(1999) they are doing it wrong (in principle, even if they got lucky
in practice).

Going down the IR path doesn't seem to work, content vs. description
opens another can of worms. So maybe an alternative might be to say
that although what you get with a 200 is a representation, it isn't an
"authoritative representation" until other information (describedby
etc) is taken into consideration.

Also talking about a "probe URI" seems misleading, taken literally it
implies every request for data should be preceded by a request for
metadata. Not sure exactly how this might be reworded, but perhaps
something along the lines of "probe activity" by the client on the
response.

Cheers,
Danny.

-- 
http://dannyayers.com

http://webbeep.it  - text to tones and back again

Received on Thursday, 29 March 2012 13:06:07 UTC