Jonas Sicking wrote:
There's lots of formats used on the web, I don't think it makes sense
to add file-getters for all of them. JSON has gotten a lot of
attention lately, does this mean we should add a getter that return a
js-style escaped string?
I don't really feel very strongly about keeping something equivalent to
getAsBase64 (whatever the eventual model), but I don't think js-style
escaped strings are an apples-to-apples comparison to Base64 encoded
strings for binary content (but I suppose Atom and JSON bear comparison).
We have getAsBinaryString, using that you can get the raw data and
then base64 or escape encode it, or convert it to whatever format you
want.
This is true, but not as convenient to programmers. I think you feel
that Base64 is one convenience too many, and starts a slippery slope :-)
An IETF working group has published standards track proposals for a format
and a protocol that uses base 64 encoding. If this is not sufficient reason,
then I am sorry but you have an unduly high expectation. Let the 'js-style
escaped string' get a similar blessing and then they can bring it to W3C to
include them in browsers.
shouldn't we also add a base64 encoding function on XMLHttpRequest?
the SQL (or other database) API? On postMessage?
Not necessarily (if we consider AtomPub uses cases). But again, I *do*
agree that getAsBinaryString is the bare minimum convenience. I think
getting stuff as Base64 is useful syntactic sugar, but can live without
it. Do the purveyors of public-facing APIs that use or extend AtomPub
have strong opinons?
-- A*
