Graham wrote:
> What if someone (either the publisher or someone downstream)
> wants to store a history of every revision in an archive
> feed?
To this, Tim Bray answered:
> I don't see why, if you wanted that kind of archive, you couldn't
> use atom:updated for every little change in the archived version
> but atom:updated only for the ones you cared about in the published
> version. In which case the archived version would be a superset
> of the published version. I see nothing wrong with that. -Tim
Of course, the objections to Tim's position are obvious:
1. The case of "someone downstream" was ignored in the answer. Tim
only addresses the issue of what the publisher might do.
2. Given Tim's "solution" to the problem, downstream readers would
be incapable of maintaining an accurate archive since only the publisher's
unpublished archive would have atom:updated values that change on each
modification.
3. The "archive" that Tim describes would not actually be a useful
archive for many purposes since it would not be an accurate description of
the sequence of entries written to the feed. For instance, such an archive
would not satisfy legal rules for logging data in financial applications
since such an archive could not be used to determine the value of the
atom:updated value in entries that had actually been published.
This whole argument is silly. Atom:modified is needed. It should be
provided. Nobody has given a decent argument against it. If you insist on
objecting to it then let the darn thing be optional -- but instead of trying
to impose your personal vision on the process, just let the rest of us get
on with doing the work we need to do in the way we know we have to do it.
bob wyman
