I was answering the question "how hard would it be to implement". The answer is, it is an Atom-specific thing, which isn't required for any other format. Therefore, it is more work.
wunder --On Thursday, November 11, 2004 1:44 PM -0800 David Orchard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, of course PDF, Office, Wordperfect don't have the notion of > mandatory extensions. They want sole control over their formats AND the > processing software. They want to be the gatekeepers for any future > incompatible changes or versions. > > I don't think you are really suggesting that Atom should be run the same > way that PDF is run from a distributed extensibility and versioning > perspective. Atom can enable fully functional distributed extensibility > and versioning for it's community, as opposed to being the centralized > authority for mandatory extensions. > > Dave > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-atom- >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Walter Underwood >> Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 11:42 AM >> To: Atom WG >> Subject: Re: Published extensibility Paces >> >> >> About "must understand": >> >> --On Thursday, November 11, 2004 11:01 AM -0800 Tim Bray >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > >> > Questions for Joe: >> > 1. Why do you think this is hard to implement? >> > 2. Assuming I can persuade you that it's cheap, would you be OK with > it >> > even given the lack of use in SOAP? >> >> Speaking as "Joe for a day": We parse no formats with compulsory >> extensions. It just doesn't exist for PDF, MS Office, OpenOffice, >> WordPerfect, whatever. You want to change it, you rev the version. >> >> Implementing this require a new result from parsing: it is a legal >> document, but we are not allowed to tell you what is in it. >> >> Feeds are in a funny place between API and document. But I think >> they are more document than API. APIs have "must understand", but >> documents don't. >> >> What does a search engine do when faced with a "must understand" >> element? Throw away the whole thing and log it? Ignore the spec >> and salvage what we can? Which one results in fewer support calls? >> >> wunder >> -- >> Walter Underwood >> Principal Architect, Verity > -- Walter Underwood Principal Architect, Verity
