Re: options, not nesting?

Michael Mealling (ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu)
Fri, 29 Oct 93 11:09:02 EDT

From: ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu (Michael Mealling)
Message-Id: <199310291509.AA15326@oit.oit.gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: options, not nesting?
To: masinter@parc.xerox.com (Larry Masinter)
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 11:09:02 EDT
In-Reply-To: <93Oct29.020743pdt.2795@golden.parc.xerox.com>; from "Larry Masinter" at Oct 29, 93 2:07 am

Larry Masinter said this:
>
> Perhaps the details of this weren't meant to be critiqued, but:

I don't think the internal field semantics were being used as the example
but you raise some interesting questions.

> The 'Pages: 5' field might be different for different representations.
> (E.g., the same paper, in postscript, formatted for US Letter and A4
> size paper). And some formats might not have any 'pages'.

Correct. I would say that your 'section' description would be part and parcel
of your Format:

> You *do* want
>
> Format: application/postscript
>
> I hope and not
>
> Format: Postscript

Correct. I think we were just typing this stuff off the cuff as an example.

> Is Size always size-in-bytes?

Nope.

> Is anyone else balking at the apparent redundency of 'URI: URL:ftp://'?

Yes. The options to this are to specify URL and URN as template items
with the value being a URN or URL. This makes URNs look kind of silly but
it still works:

URN:URN:IANA:bla
URL:http://bla.com/bla

See my other mail(s) on this one.

> One question for these attributes is which of them are strings and
> which are identifiers that should be assigned by the IANA. Format: and
> Language: are identifiers (represented by a strings, but you should
> use X-nnnn if you are using an identifier which isn't registered).

I would leave this up to the IAFA and Data Elements folx.

> On the other hand, Author-Name is a string.
>
> Will we standardize on a format for Author-Name? Last name first,
> first name, initial? (I think not, but just to point out that it IS an
> issue).

I agree it's an issue but I don't think we can logically include it in
these discussions because that would be throwing out the baby with the
bath water. Let's punt this discussion.

-MM

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