Tim Bray wrote:
On consideration, I am -1 to rel="subscribe". The reason is this: one of
the big potential value-adds Atom brings is a standards- compliant way to
do one-click auto-subscribe, via <link rel="self" /
>. You are proposing to introduce a <link rel="subscribe" /> which
is there to support autosubscribe. But, it turns out, only in the
special case where the feed is static and you wouldn't actually subscribe
to it. I think the risk of confusing implementors and weakening the
value proposition around <link rel="self" greatly exceeds the benefit of
supporting this special case.
At the time "subscribe" was proposed it wasn't clear that there would be a
"first" and "last". However, since that is now the case, would it not
short-circuit a whole lot of argument if we just threw out "subscribe"
altogether?
Determining whether an Atom document is an archive can be achieved by
looking for the presence of a "prev" link and/or a "first" link that is not
equal to "self". As for finding the subscribtion URI itself - that should
just be the "first" link shouldn't it?
I don't want to get dragged back into a long argument on this so if you
think this is a stupid idea don't expect any defence from me. I'm just
throwing it out there with the hope that it might be workable.
Regards
James
