Revisiting mime-types and file extensions

[Michel Fortin]

Le 2007-06-20 à 5:51, Thomas Nichols a écrit :


> Having a mime type of 'text/x-markdown' and a profile URI

> declared by the author of the language grammar (e.g.

> "http://maruku.org/0.5") seems an economical solution, and would  

> follow

> the pattern for [XML namespaces][xml-namespaces], Java JAXP feature

> URIs[jaxp-features] and [OpenID identifiers][openid]


All these need a unique identifier to work anywhere, ensuring that  
authors will create the unique identifier. Not the case with  
Markdown: anyone can create his own version without creating a  
corresponding unique identifier. If a downstream developer, someone  
else than the original author, needs an identifier and decide to  
create one, nothing ensure others will use the same identifier; and  
here goes the "unique" part of the identifier.

Beside, what does the identifier corresponds to anyway? A specific  
implementation? A particular syntax? One version of that  
implementation or that syntax or all of them? I can't really figure  
out right now: how many "unique" identifiers are needed and how are  
each going to be used?



> Any suggested changes to this? Michel, would you care to propose a URI

> for Markdown Extra, should anyone decide they'd like to use one?


I'm still not sure using URLs for this is worthy, but if someone  
wants a reference URL for Markdown Extra, I'd suggest using this:

     http://michelf.com/ref/markdown-extra

I've put a small explanatory document at this address. If you need  
versioning, here is what I suggest:

     http://michelf.com/ref/markdown-extra#v1.0
     http://michelf.com/ref/markdown-extra#v1.1

These are the two points at which PHP Markdown Extra changed its  
syntax specification (besides beta versions) to accomodate new features.


Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://www.michelf.com/