On Saturday, May 21, 2005, at 09:20 PM, Bob Wyman wrote:
Antone Roundy wrote:
Unless the "need" for this can be shown, and it can be shown that
an extension can't take care of it, I'm -1 on atom:modified.
The need is simple and I've stated it dozens of times...
...but is it a need or a want? That was the point "need" in quotes was
attempting to make. I agree it is preferred to be able to reliably
pick the last one, but I disagree that it's a particularly important
preference.
Common practice is, and will probably continue to be, to include only
one instance of a particular entry in a particular feed document. Only
in the unusual cases will there be any difficulty in determining which
instance came last.
On extensions... Virtually anything can be done in extensions.
Many things can, but not all. An extension can't say "I'm not going to
publish a title, because I have roundy:title++, which is better".
atom:title is required. Also, an extension won't be able to allow
multiple atom:author elements if we don't amend the spec to allow them.
It will be able to define an alternative way of expressing authorship,
and allow multiple of those, but a single author will continue to be
required, either at the feed level or in the entry. What I meant was
"particularly without duplicating the function of a core element",
which just makes things sloppy.
It is inevitable that
extensions will not be as broadly implemented as elements of the core.
The
practical implication of forcing something to be an extension is to
ensure
that it is never broadly implemented.
It makes it more rare, certainly, but there are extensions which are
broadly implemented, and I'm sure there will be more, if the need is
significant enough to enough people.
