[whatwg] PaceEntryMediatype

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 2 Dec 2006, Thomas Broyer wrote:
> 2006/12/1, Ian Hickson:
> > On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Thomas Broyer wrote:
> > >
> > > A summary of my problem with HTML5's autodiscovery: - there 
> > > shouldn't be a 'rel' value for "subscribability", subscribability is 
> > > a matter of whether and how an UA can process content from a 
> > > particular media type
> >
> > Agreed. The spec doesn't mention subscribing, just that rel=feed means 
> > it's a syndication feed.
> 
> And what is a "syndication feed", if not something that's 
> "subscribable"?
>
> I mean, there is no definition of "syndication feed", neither of "feed 
> autodiscovery" (what's the purpose of "feed autodiscovery", if not to 
> subscribe to such feeds?)
> 
> In that sense, I really do think the spec is mentionning subscribing.

Oh. If you just mean that you don't think there should be a way to say 
that a particular document is a syndication feed, then I disagree. I would 
assert that the popularity of feed readers such as Bloglines, Google 
Reader, and so forth, is evidence that many other people find this feature 
useful as well.


> With my "proposal", existing content would still be found by "feed 
> autodiscovery", it would just be "semantically incorrect" in many cases 
> (from an "entry" page, when linking to the feed containing the entry 
> with rel="alternate"; the feed is not an alternate to the entry; the use 
> of rel="alternate" was just a hack to "display the orange icon").

So you're proposing making the hundreds of millions of existing instances 
of syndication feed links non-conforming?

That seems about equivalent to closing the barn door after the horse has 
bolted, as they say.


> [...]
> 
> I hope I clarified my opinion.

Actually I'm even more confused now than before. Could you propose exact 
normative replacement text for the specification that would make you 
happy? In doing so, please consider these constraints:

 * We cannot define anything to do with the user interface, only the 
   meaning of the link relationships, because user agents must be allowed 
   to innovate in user interfaces (basically, only interoperability can 
   be ensured, not homogeneity).

 * We don't want to break existing practices. If something is 
   interoperably implemented and widely used, then it should continue to 
   work in the same way.

 * The specification should be kept as simple as possible.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'