On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 07:42:55PM +0200, Arve Bersvendsen wrote:
> 
> 1) Change the attribute value for the rel from "alternate" to "feed", or  
> some similar wording.  A feed is not always an alternate of the HTML  
> document in which it occurs. Suggested replacement text:

I'm all for avoiding pigeonholing like that.  But what about the case
when a feed IS an alternate version?  HTML says to use "alternate",
this says to use "feed".  Which takes precedence?

Plus, "feed" is kind of application-specific.  What about "related"?

Consider also that HTML allows alternate stylesheets to be identified
with the relationships "alternate" and "stylesheet".  HTML overrides
the semantics of "alternate" in this case (since the stylesheet isn't
an alternate version of the page, it's just an alternate stylesheet).
Who's to say we can't overload it a little for this case?

So I might suggest, in order of preference:

1. "alternate" for feeds that can be considered alternate versions of
   the current document, and "related" for feeds that can be discovered
   via this page, but aren't actually an alternate form of the content
   on that page; or

2. "feed" for all feeds, and "alternate feeds" for feeds that can be
   considered alternate versions of the current document.  (This would
   use "alternate" with its stand-alone meaning, not the meaning given
   to it in the "alternate stylesheet" case.)

> 2) I am not too fond of requiring a type attribute, since feeds may be  
> served in multiple formats from a single URL. I have previously performed  

Omitting the type is only practical when you have a link relationship
dedicated to this specific application.  If we continue to use
generic relationships like "alternate" and/or "related", it becomes a
little inefficient since you have to hit the link targets pretty much
indiscriminately looking for one that responds with a media type you're
looking for.

I expect that many of my implementations will utilize content negotiation
(using the same URL as an HTML representation, where needed), so I expect
that I'll have some links like:

  <link rel="alternate" href="/" type="application/atom+xml">
  <link rel="alternate" href="/" type="application/rss+xml">

Or even

  <link rel="alternate" href="" type="application/atom+xml">
  <link rel="alternate" href="" type="application/rss+xml">

As crazy as that looks, is there a better way of saying "this URL is
also available in these media types"?

David

-- 
 == David Nesting WL7RO Fastolfe [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fastolfe.net/ ==
 fastolfe.net/me/pgp-key A054 47B1 6D4C E97A D882  C41F 3065 57D9 832F AB01

Reply via email to