> 1. The same effect can be provided by supertype data content notations
> (using data attributes, which XML doesn't support)
Agreed.
"Blast and damn [the people who kept data attributes out]!
May they all suffer from elephantiasis, locomotor ataxy,
and ingrown toenails!"
-- _Murder Must Advertise_ (somewhat repurposed)
> 2. having only two levels of typing seems either insufficient or
> unnecessarily limiting.
Not so. MIME types may have more than two levels, but must have
at least two, and the requirement for creating a new top-level
type is stringent.
> 3. It assumes that the resource is something for which distinctions like
> text or not-text are even relevant. It may not be, because the data type
> may be entirely abstract (like an SGML architecture or grove construction
> process).
MIME types are a syntax standard: they tell you how to interpret
an octet-stream as something or other: currently, a picture, a sound, a
character stream, a video stream, application-specific data,
a model of a physical object, a message, or an aggregate of
one or more of these things.
-- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)