Paul Hoffman wrote: > > -1 because it doesn't feel like it belongs in the core. That is, when > more developers have real profiles that they want to differentiate from > the atom core, adding a @profile attribute seems like a good extension.
Hmm. the challenge with this assertion is that the atom spec as it stands today, does not give someone the option of being able to override the metadata containment requirements as specified by the core. Nor does it give any indication how such redefinition should occur. This spec does not introduce any other profiles, it just provides the framework under which profiles can be created and cooks that into the core so that doing so can be done in a consistent, reliable manner.
Further, one would need to consider how a @profile differs from a @version and the namespace attribute, etc. This proposal replaces @version completely with the @profile mechanism. The namespace is used to identify the semantics of the individual elements themselves while the profile is used to identify the containment requirements. As the spec stands currently, the relationship between atom [EMAIL PROTECTED] requirements+element semantics is muddled up. Is it possible for someone to modify containment requirements for a specific use case while adhering to the same atom namespace? The @version attribute is defined such that it relates to Atom spec version. Does @version reflect element semantics or containment requirements or both? This proposal says, namespace==element semantics, @profile=containment requirements and provides a clear, consistent approach to handling different/multiple @profiles. That is a far cry from the minimal and far-from-helpful "atom:feed elements MUST have a "version" attribute whose content indicates the version of the Atom specification that the feed conforms to. The content of this attribute is unstructured text."
Also, as others have pointed out, the profile attribute mechanism could be used to handle cases such as defining the requirements for an archive as opposed to creating a new top level archive element.
Bottom line: while @profile COULD be added as an extension, I think it is much more valuable in the core as a replacement to @version.
- James M Snell
