Subject: <content @src> vs. <link @rel="alternate">

From: "Zhiwu Xie" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:11:44 -0600 (MDT)

The spec says if I don't have a <content> then I must have a <link
@rel="alternate">. Can I assume the later is a substitution of the former
if I don't want to provide any <content>?

The reason I don't want to provide <content> is due to its nature of human
consumption (while in my application I'm mainly targeting at machine
processing, so I don't want to parse <content> but prefer to just have an
HTTP address to retrieve the content), also there's a "no composite MIME
type" clause for <content @src> that may potentially limit the resources I
can include in as content.

But then it can also be confusing if I don't have a <content> element but
have multiple <link @rel="alternate">. I can't be sure which resource
should be treated as the real content or they should all be treated
equally as the contents.

Thanks,

Zhiwu Xie

---

From: "A. Pagaltzis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:10:19 +0200

Hi Zhiwu,

you probably want to use `<content @src>`.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>

---

From: "A. Pagaltzis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:11:43 +0200

Hi Zhiwu,

> you probably want to use `<content @src>`.

err I meant “with no `@type` attribute.”

The restrictions apply to the type given in the `@type`
attribute, but it’s fine to omit that.

Regards,

---

From: Zhiwu Xie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:59:19 -0600

Thanks a lot for the reply. But going this way I'll also have to supply 
<summary>, which serves no apparent use in my application. I surely can 
leave it empty but then it still feels like an intentional twist to the 
<content>'s original purpose. Does this matter?

Or can I interpret <link rel="alternate"> as the same as <content @src>?

Thanks,

Zhiwu Xie

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:54:48 +0200

> Or can I interpret <link rel="alternate"> as the same as <content @src>?

I would not say that they are semantically equivalent. With  
link[@rel='alternate']/@href, I'd expect some of the metadata inside  
<entry> and </entry> to be available in the alternative representation.  
With content/@src, I wouldn't expect that. To be more precise, I see  
content/@src to be a smaller "unit" of information than the atom:entry and  
whatever alternate representations it may have.

Did that make sense? :-)

-- 
Asbjørn Ulsberg     -=|=-    http://virtuelvis.com/quark/
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»