[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Registration status
> Now, all we need to do is upgrade the entire installed > based of Internet-connected machines that understand MIME, and I'll > agree that a MIME registration for backward compatibility is no longer > necessary. having to upgrade that installed base is exactly the problem with the xxx+xml proposals. If XML is served as text or application/xml then you do get a reasonable default behaviour (for example your mail agent might ship all such files to internet explorer for display. IE has a reasonable default presentation of XML and its default stylesheet could easily include special cases for things like svg and xhtml (and until then the document can specify a specific stylesheet). But if your mail agent comes across an xxx+xml document and it doesn't know this type, basically it's stumped. It won't even (currently) by default do the "obvious" thing of dropping the xxx+ and trying the more general xml mime type. you say > This of course, is all IMHO, as RFC 3023 explicitly supports you serving > all XML as application/xml if you really want to. But as A.15 mentions, > there are no apparent downsides from using custom types and several > advantages. but A.15 (which I have re-read) is about the benefits of using a +xml suffix as opposed to not. I agree, if there is to be a mime type for mathml then it may as well be text/mathml+xml rather than just text/mathml. I don't think there is any argument with that. But until mime agents are upgraded to _automatically_ fall back to text/xml if they receive a text/mathml+xml document and they don't know that mime type, then anyone serving mathml files would be well advised to serve them as text/xml as they will have a much wider chance of being processed. Incidentally it seems to be widely held belief that text/xml was a mistake and that xml ought almost always be in application/xml. I don't really hold that view. For decades TeX users have sent tex markup as plain text emails and been more or less happy. I don't see (document-oriented) XML as significantly different. If someone sends me some email with some mathematics in, and I'm sat at a machine without a mathml renderer, I'd much rather just see the mathml markup inline (which can be read, in small doses, honestly:-) than just be offered a file/save option on the grounds that the lovingly constructed mathematics is just unreadable application specific data. David _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service.
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