Hi Antone,
Thanks for the comments. This draft was admittedly rough, but I
wanted to get an idea of people's general reactions before refining
it too much. In particular, I'd be interested in implementors'
reactions (e.g., aggregators, publishers).
Responses below.
Then we add an entry. The old "this" link can't be used to point
to the new instance of the feed, right? Because that would violate
this requirement:
"The value of the "this" link relation's href attribute MUST be
a URI
indicating a permanent location that is unique to that Feed
Document
instance; i.e., the content obtained by dereferencing that URI
SHOULD
NOT change over time."
This is poorly worded; your 'batches of 15' scenario is what I had in
mind. I'll work on better language for -01.
Now let's say someone tries to fetch the original "this" feed. The
draft says:
"Note that publishers are not required to make all previous Feed
Documents available."
This seems like a likely circumstance where the publisher might not
want to both to continue making the original instance available.
If that's what they decide, then what? Do they return a 410
(gone)? Presumably, some will return a 404 (not found), even
though 410 would be better. What should a client do if it receives
a 404 or 410? Is there a way for them to find the new instance?
Should there be? (Presumably they're subscribed to the feed from a
URI different than the one in the "this" link, so in this case,
it's probably not such a big deal, but read on, and you'll see
where it could become an issue).
I'm not sure what you're looking for; the semantics of 404 and 410
are clearly defined by HTTP. If the server says it can't find it, or
it's gone, the client is unable to reconstruct the full state of the
feed, and SHOULD warn the user.
Also, I just noticed that in some places, the word "representation"
is used, and in some places "instance" is used, apparently to mean
the same thing. In my opinion, "instance" is better.
I'll take a look.
Thanks again!
--
Mark Nottingham http://www.mnot.net/
