>>"The human readable text describing the type and content of the
>>resource file"
Two agreements emerged from our conversation Tuesday. The first was
that Alan's analogy of an HTML <alt> tag is right on the mark... the
chief purpose of <resourceDesc> is to benefit folks who can't access
the resource directly for whatever reason. Thus the addition of the
words "human readable."
The second had to do with the scope of that human-readable
description. In many cases it will describe both the type and the
content... e.g., "Map of affected area NE of Anniston, Alabama" or
"Recent photo of missing 10-year old boy, wearing red T-shirt and
with short blond hair." (To say just "Affected area NE of Anniston,
Alabama" would be a lot less informative, leaving the reader in the
dark as to whether the resource was a map or a photo or some other
representation like a GIS shape file.) Thus the retention of the
"type and content" language.
Again, the <resourceDesc> is for the benefit of humans, not
computers. The <mimeType> element is where we can specify the file
type in an unambiguous and standard form.
- Art
