On Oct 09, 2007, at 15:39, Jon Ferraiolo wrote:
First, should there be a manifest file that lists the contents of the ZIP package? Let's assume the answer is yes. Then, you probably want to have an attribute such as 'type' that defines the MIME type of each particular file such as you describe below. My personal opinion is that it is always better to KISS, which translates into standards groups holding a ruthless sword that battles against feature creep of non-critical features, and in my mind manifest files are non-critical in many common workflows because the ZIP file itself has a directory and because the most common payload format, HTML, works on the Web very well without manifest files. My pragmatic proposal would be to define the file format for the manifest and define a standard location and name for the manifest within the package, but make it optional. In other words, manifests are not required but if present must conform to the spec. One more thing. If possible, to accelerate time to market and industry adopton, I would push the manifest file out of version 1.0, but have the 1.0 specification state reserve a future location for the manifest file.
I'm with Jon on this one; I think it's a useful feature in some circumstances but I'm not convinced that it makes the 80/20 mark. I'd be happier with a promise to push a v2.0 out quickly with that feature included (and supporting content encoding as well as type).
-- Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet." -- Douglas Adams
