Register a media-type with IANA

Hey everyone,

Here's something I've been willing to bring up but am just taking the time write now…

It is my understanding that Jasonette understands a very specific json format called Jason, correct?

Assuming the above is true, what do you think about registering a media type with IANA? I'll list down some name options that come to mind as examples of what I mean and then I'll expand of the benefits of having a registered media type.

• application/vnd.jason+json _{(this would be my preference given the format name is Jason)}
• application/vnd.jasonette+json _{(kinda weird as jasonette is the name of the "browser", not the format)}

There's a concept called content negotiation, where client and server can exchange information using the Accept and Content-Type headers to communicate, respectively, what the client is able to understand (preferred format) and what the server responded with. This way we can have a single entry point into our systems, for example https://example.com, and serve different representations when possible. A normal web browser would hit the above URL with Accept=text/html and we can simply respond with an HTML representation of requested resource. Jasonette would hit it with Accept=application/vnd.jason+json and we can simply respond with a Jason representation of that same resource.

Using application/json on its own does provide any clues about format semantics. A media type, like application/vnd.jason+json tells clients that they can use a JSON parser (+json) to read the contents and, together with vnd.jason, use the dictionary (meaning) defined by the Jason format. Here's a somewhat recent Hacker News thread on the subject regarding a new json-based format someone created (quite lengthy though).

On the client side, for example, Jasonette could implement (handle) different media types besides Jason, just like regular web browsers do when you follow a image/png resource, or even a video/mp4 resource by understanding the Content-Type and running the appropriate parser/renderer.

Hope we can get a conversation started and move this forward!

Start by reviewing the Jason format documentation at docs.jasonette.com and the IANA media-types registry linked in the issue. Determine whether the project has decided on a media type and what documentation or client behavior would need to change; the issue is complete only when that scope and outcome are agreed.