RE: text/xhtml+xml vs. application/xhtml+xml

At 12:59 PM 11/1/00 -0500, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
>Given
>
>  1) choices for types
>        text/xml
>        application/xml
>        application/foo+xml
>  2) clear guidelines on their use.
>
>do *you* have faith that developers
>will do what is right?

I do, actually.

I've spent a fair amount of time dealing with developers who got so used to
text/html that they figured text/xml was the way to go.

It doesn't take much explaining to get them to shift to application/xml for
light use and application/xyz+xml for cases where they want to identify
their types further.  

So far, that explaining's been on a one-on-one basis through email and
conference encounters, but the explaining hasn't been the hard part.  The
hard part is just getting people to think about it in the first place.

When we have an RFC to point to, I'm planning on posting more general
discussion of these issues to xml-dev, xml-l, and comp.text.xml.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books