MIME types in DAL services

[Mark Taylor]

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Steve Allen wrote:

> On Mon 2007-04-23T12:53:20 -0700, Roy Williams hath writ:
>> It would be nice to have a server that delivers that various options
>> that have been mooted for the VOTable MIME type. Then we can ask this WG
>> to evaluate the options on their own environment. Once the results are
>> in for different browsers, we can select the MIME types that generate
>> the proper behavior.
>
> Is it acceptable to assert that the server should conform to the
> standard and that those who have enough motivation to use the service
> should reconfigure their browsers from the manufacturer's default?

I quite agree with Steve here.  Although I've admitted pragmatism,
it only goes so far - I'm prepared to concede that the query response
can have text/xml because it doesn't really matter, that particular
content probably is destined for human readers, and it doesn't
contain tabular data.  The VOTable containing the actual returned data 
however ought to have the correct MIME type (application/x-votable+xml,
or possibly text/x-votable+xml) rather than one that just happens to work.
Not only is this the Right Thing To Do, but going down the path of 
trying it with all kinds of browsers to see what achieves the best 
set of compromises would be (a) hard work and (b) fragile.

I think this position is consistent with what Doug was suggesting 
in any case.

Mark

-- 
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/