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On Wednesday 13 February 2002 11:01 am, Bill de hÓra wrote:
> But I guess my question is, is such a language something that should
> have been built into say, HTTP with respect to mimetypes, or
> something that could have been slotted in, or indeed left to an
> application to negotiate?

My personal take on this is that HTTP evolved (yes *evolved*) exactly 
as it should have, to the point where it is now showing a few cracks. 
The choice to use MIME-ish syntax, was, at the time, a smart thing to 
do both technically and politically. While some folk anticipated 
problems, I doubt anyone anticipated the exact path of evolution.

Developing software is almost always an evolutionary process... and as 
many books say, you have to be prepared to throw things away. HTTP 
needs some work... so perhaps HTTP-NG (or maybe HTTP-REST) work should 
start up....

Unfortunately, the "legacy" issue is always used to justify short-term 
measures that cost a lot in the long run.


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