Re: MIME types and content negotiation

[Graham Klyne <GK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:20 PM 3/17/00 -0500, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> I don't see the 'complexity' that certain other folks here are complaining
> about - in fact, I think these 4 bytes promise considerable simplification
> over any multi-parameter approach, for both humans and machines.

This argument might hold if the only requirement is to (a) recognize a 
specific application of XML, and (b) (usually) recognize a generic 
XML-based file format, even when the specific application is not recognized.

I have read a lot of stuff recently that indicates the forward vision of 
much W3C activity is that a single XML file may contain data corresponding 
to many different XML applications.  Once we get into this kind of 
territory, I think the idea of a MIME subtype suffix becomes hopelesly 
lost, and some kind of multiparameter approach becomes the simplest way to 
deal with the recognition problem.

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@xxxxxxx)