Re: PATCH proposal

> I think this draft should go through a mailing list last-call; and it 
> should also not be submitted until open issues are resolved. Doing it 
> after submission simply creates a lot of additional work in the 
> publication process.

I  believe that it *is* going through a mailing list last-call, as much 
as an independent submission that is not being adopted by a WG ever 
goes through a WG mailing list last call. It will also go through IETF 
mailing list call, as a matter of course.

Anyway, as far as making changes after submission, since you suggested 
a reasonable reorg (a new section on interdependencies with other 
standards), and since I realized that security considerations were 
missing, the changes based on your comments are now definitely going to 
require another draft version. I will be publishing draft -05 shortly 
if I don't get any more comments, now that PATCH has gone through 
several drafts without any material changes, perhaps -05 will be the 
draft to be submitted for RFC.

>
>>> C-03-04, Section 3.1
>>>
>>> "In the model defined in RFC3230 [5], the patch document is modelled
>>> as an instance being sent to the server...."
>>>
>>> It's unclear whether we are reusing RFC3250 or not. As far as I can  
>>> tell,
>>> this spec is independant of RCF3250, so I'm not sure what this  
>>> paragraph
>>> is trying to define.
>> As I've said, this paragraph defines how a client can be compliant 
>> with  both PATCH and RFC3230.  If it's not specified whether the 
>> PATCH  document is itself an instance or an instance manipulation, 
>> clients and  servers could have difficulty interoperating if they 
>> implemented both  PATCH and RFC3230.
>
> I appreciate if this is clarified; maybe the paragraph needs to be 
> expanded and/or moved into a separate section (interdependencies with 
> other specs)?

I can do that; thanks for the specific suggestion.

>
>>> C-03-07, Sectionb 3.2.1
>>>
>>> "The server SHOULD provide a MD5 hash of the resource entity after 
>>> the
>>> delta was applied.  This allows the client to verify the success of
>>> the operation.  The PATCH method MUST cause the ETag to change if the
>>> resulting entity is not identical to the original.  If the server
>>> supports strong ETags, the server MUST return a strong ETag for use
>>> in future client operations.  The server SHOULD return the
>>> Last-Modified header in any case, but the server MUST return the
>>> Last-Modified header if ETags aren't supported."
>>>
>>> I don't like the interdependencies here. Why not simply say, in  
>>> addition
>>> to the response headers that would be generated for a PUT request on 
>>>  that
>>> resource, the server SHOULD also provide Content-MD5.
>>>
>>> Speaking of which; it would be nice if this spec could define a  
>>> standard
>>> WebDAV property holding the content MD5, sich as DAV:getcontentmd5.
>> Section 3.2.1 seems clear to me, perhaps you could be more clear what 
>>  you mean about "don't like the interdependencies here"?  The text 
>> about  returning a strong ETag is important and not redundant or  
>> interdependent with the text about the MD5 hash.
>
> I feel the current wording is problematic in that it is a cascade of 
> conditional statements. Whatever makes this simpler and basically 
> provides the same would be preferrable; thus my proposal.

OK, I can make it more clear that the ETag sentences do not depend on 
the MD5 usage.  I think the main problem is that I forgot to put 
</t><t> between the first and second sentence.  And I can simplify the 
requirements for Last-Modified:

	  <t>The server SHOULD provide a MD5 hash of the resource entity after 
the
	  patch was applied.  This allows the client to verify the success of
	  the operation.
	  </t>
           <t>
	    As with PUT, the PATCH method MUST change the resource's ETag if
	  the resulting entity is not identical to the original.
	  If the server supports strong ETags, the server MUST return
	  a strong ETag for use in future client operations.  The server MUST
	  return the Last-Modified header if it does not support strong 
ETags.</t>

>
>> Defining new WebDAV properties is out of scope; PATCH does not depend 
>>  on WebDAV.  I would welcome specification of such a property 
>> elsewhere.
> >
>>> C-03-08, Section 3.2.2
>>>
>>> 2) Make this optional for servers that do not care about WebDAV.
>> This section has nothing to do with support for WebDAV on either 
>> side.   HTTP clients supporting PATCH can use error messages in the 
>> body just  as well as WebDAV clients do.  I do not agree with making 
>> it optional  at any rate; it's easy for the server, optional for the 
>> client, and  promotes interoperability.
>
> As developer of WebDAV servers, I don't have any problem with that. 
> However, I feel that there are people out there who'd prefer to have 
> zero dependencies on WebDAV or related specs; and IMHO we should 
> respect that.

IMHO we are respecting that.  This doesn't require a server to 
implement any WebDAV features or even read the DeltaV spec.

>
>>> 3) Put the condition names into a different namespace, unless the  
>>> WebDAV WG
>>> agrees to adopt these names (for instance use, urn:ietf:rfc:xxxx).
>> The WebDAV WG has many chances to review this draft and object to the 
>>  use of the DAV: namespace.  I interpret silence as consent to adopt  
>> these names.
>
> With all due respect: I'm a member of the WebDAV WG and I have 
> objected to this. This is *not* 'silence'! If you want to use the DAV: 
> namespace, send an *explicit* request to the mailing list and try to 
> get consensur in favor of it.

I misunderstood.  Do you think it is wrong to use the "DAV:" namespace? 
  If you think it is wrong, please say so.  I thought you said that the 
WG should agree to the use of the namespace, which is what we're doing. 
  This is an explicit discussion on the mailing list about whether 
that's OK.

I personally think it's OK but will replace the namespace if I get a 
bunch of objections.

>
>>> 3) Stick to RFC3253's terminology (the names identify conditions, 
>>> not  errors, thus
>>>
>>> s/DAV:delta-format-unsupported/p:delta-format-supported/
>>> s/DAV:delta-format-forbidden-on-resource/p:delta-format-allowed-on- 
>>> resource/
>>> s/DAV:delta-format-badly-formatted/p:delta-documented-well-formatted/
>>> s/DAV:delta-empty-resource/p:delta-format-applies-to-empty/
>>> S/DAV:patch-result-invalid/p:patch-result-valid/
>> As you know from this and other specs, I am sticking to the HTTP  
>> approach, describing the error rather than the condition that would 
>> be  a lack of an error.  Describing the error is far more natural (in 
>> many  protocols, not just HTTP) and promotes readability of the spec 
>> and of  the error responses when they're encountered by programmers 
>> or  analysts.
>
> Once you pick an existing protocol element - stick with it's 
> semantics. I'm not saying that identifying errors instead of 
> conditions by itself is bad; but it's inconsistent with what RFC3253 
> (from which you borrow) defines. If you don't like the semantics of a 
> protocol element, by all means do NOT reuse it with silently changed 
> semantics.

They're just string constants so there is no silently changed 
semantics.  The interpretation is different but they're 
machine-readable codes.  At this point, I think we disagree on a naming 
convention and can agree to disagree on the tradeoffs between 
consistency and readability.  I didn't think it was so important that I 
was willing to hold up DeltaV so that DeltaV would do it my way.

>
>>> C-03-09, Section 3.3
>>>
>>> "OPTIONS * is not used to advertise support for PATCH because the
>>> delta formats supported are likely to change from one resource to
>>> another.  A server MAY include the Accept-Patch header in response to
>>> OPTIONS *, and its value MAY be the union of known supported delta
>>> formats."
>>>
>>> I think that if this paragraph is removed, the spec still says the 
>>> same
>>> thing. It doesn't add anything that doesn't already follow from  
>>> RFC2616.
>>>
>> What "follows from RFC2616" differs for many people.  I added this
>
> (shouldn't)

Huh? Are you saying that RFC2616 implications shouldn't differ for many 
people?  Does that mean:
    "RFC2616 is so clear that everybody reading it draws the same 
conclusions even about how extensions to RFC2616 might work"
or
    "RFC2616 should be (but isn't) so clear that everybody reading it 
draws the same conclusions even about how extensions to RFC2616 might 
work"

Or something else?  And what does this imply for PATCH?

>
>> paragraph because there was lots of confusion and discussion about 
>> the  appropriateness of OPTIONS *.  A reader of this spec shouldn't 
>> need to  read the entire mailing lists to understand how OPTIONS * 
>> might work in  this situation.  Besides, this helps servers that do 
>> support OPTIONS *  do so in a consistent manner -- showing the union 
>> of supported delta  formats, rather than some other value in the 
>> Accept-Patch header.
>
> I still think this is a mistake. Following your line of argument, any 
> HTTP-related spec would need to explain how it doesn't affect the 
> semantics of "OPTIONS *".

Yup.  That is, in fact, my line of argument -- any HTTP-related spec 
that extends the OPTIONS response needs to explain how that extension 
works for OPTIONS *.

>
>>> E-03-03, References
>>>
>>> URL for [9] is missing.
>> URLs aren't strictly required, so until I can figure out how to 
>> include  it (help appreciated here) it's going to continue to be 
>> missing.  I  think this can be added in Auth48 unless there is an 
>> earlier  opportunity.
>
> 381c380
> <       <reference anchor="refs.W3C-GDIFF">
> ---
> >       <reference anchor="refs.W3C-GDIFF" 
> target="http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-gdiff-19970901">


Thanks!

>>> E-04-02, References
>>>
>>> The references need to be split into normative and informative. As 
>>> far  as
>>> I can tell, only RFC2046 (MIME), RFC2616 (HTTP) and the GDIFF spec  
>>> should
>>> be normative.  Speaking of which, the reference to VCDIFF should be  
>>> removed.
>> I've removed VCDIFF, thanks.  I'm actually not sure with the XML 
>> format  how to split references into normative and informative, but 
>> I'd be  happy to do so.
>
> See <http://xml.resource.org/>, "Helpful Hints".

For some reason, at some point, I thought my validator was complaining 
about this, so I took it out in some prior draft.  But now it works. 
Thanks again.

Lisa

Received on Monday, 23 August 2004 21:48:40 UTC