- From: Brian Gaines <gaines@fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
- Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 15:08:22 -0600
- To: mwm@contessa.phone.net
- Cc: www-talk@www10.w3.org
>Mike Meyer remarks > Yup. Personally, I think that the current mechanism is fine for > distinct objects; most browsers have a "save-to-file" facility that > gets invoked on any type they don't otherwise know how to deal with, > so you can just send "*/*" (or nothing) if you don't want to deal with > the quality issue. > Hi Mike -- the problem is format negotiation. I have services that can give better interaction if an appropriate helper is installed, but can still give useful functionality if not. So I need to know at the server whether the helper application is registered or not. That was the purpose of the Accept field -- not to say "I accept *.* because I can dump it in a file regardless of whether that file is usable or not." It's like a lot of HTML/HTTP, what was intended has never been defined, and I guess Roy Fielding's work on defining HTTP is where we should look for clarification. The debate on www-talk at least demonstrates that there are 2 schools of thought (if not more!). b. Brian Gaines Knowledge Science Institute, University of Calgary gaines@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/KSI tel: 403-220-5901 fax: 403-284-4707
Received on Saturday, 22 April 1995 17:14:55 UTC