So the rationale for ordering by app:edited is so that edit-oriented
clients can easily synchronize their local copies of the collection with
the server side versions. They need to walk back only as far as their
last synchronization. This is a different need than read-only
syndicators, which usually don't care about missed entries and as you
point out don't care about a typo fixed in something from two years ago.
So you have two use cases for the same data. You can use the same feed
for both, but you'll need to compromise a bit. Or you can have two
feeds and tailor each.
Blogger, the software I work on, has the same issue of course.
John
Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
To those on atom-syntax who've got this through being CC'd, Habari
currently uses one feed for both end users and the APP collection, and
is currently sorted by atom:updated (which is currently any update,
but seems to be little opposition to fixing that) — the seeming issue
is splitting the end user feed and the APP collection up, as several
are questioning what the need to actually order by app:edited is. What
really is the need for it to be ordered by app:edited? I can see
nothing in the archives or on the wiki about the ordering (apart from
its introduction).
On 16 Feb 2008, at 18:54, Ben Ramsey wrote:
On 2/16/08 6:54 AM, Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
The other importance that this change makes more obvious is that the
Atom Syndication Feed and Atom Publishing Protocol collection need to
be in separate documents, as they have different sorting requirements.
I see no need for them to be separate documents.
Section 4.1.1 of RFC 4287 states "this specification assigns no
significance to
the order of atom:entry elements within the feed." So, I don't see
where the
Atom Syndication Format specifies how entries should be ordered.
AtomPub simply
takes this a step farther by actually assigning significance to the
order,
stating in section 10: "Entries in the returned Atom Feed SHOULD be
ordered by
their 'app:edited' property, with the most recently edited Entries
coming first
in the document order."
I didn't mean ASF actually required any specific order, I meant that
for end users it makes no sense to order the end user feed by
app:edited (as nobody cares about a typo from several years ago being
corrected, for example); we have no valid reason in our circumstances
to order the APP collection (by app:edited) against the "SHOULD" in
APP, so in that way they have conflicting needs. This means they need
to be separate documents.
To me, this doesn't warrant a distinction between Atom Syndication
Feeds and
Atom Protocol Collections. Section 10 of the protocol also states: "No
distinction is made between Collection Feeds and other kinds of
Feeds." To me,
this means that they should be treated exactly the same. The Protocol
simply
adds a few more rules to Feed.
Yeah, sure, it's possible to have them as the same, but to follow what
APP actually says you need it ordered by app:edited, which makes no
sense in the context of a normal feed that readers subscribe to.
--
Geoffrey Sneddon
<http://gsnedders.com/>
