Re: configurations vs. deep revisions (aka baselines)

Bradley Sergeant (Bradley.Sergeant@merant.com)
Mon, 4 Oct 1999 11:36:33 -0700 

Message-ID: <F3B2A0DB2FC1D211A511006097FFDDF534386A@BEAVMAIL>
From: Bradley Sergeant <Bradley.Sergeant@merant.com>
To: "'Geoffrey M. Clemm'" <gclemm@tantalum.atria.com>,
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 11:36:33 -0700 
Subject: RE: configurations vs. deep revisions (aka baselines)

Perhaps we could then call each revision of a versioned configuration a
baseline.

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Geoffrey M. Clemm [mailto:gclemm@tantalum.atria.com]
		Sent:	Friday, October 01, 1999 4:38 AM
		To:	ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
		Subject:	configurations vs. deep revisions (aka
baselines)


		One of the issues that we have faced is a clash between the
protocol
		for manipulating configurations and the protocol for
manipulating
		deep revisions of collections (currently called "baselines"
in the
		protocol).  In particular, we have been saying that a deep
revision
		is a special kind of configuration, but while a deep
revision is just
		an immutable object that can be created and used in revision
selection
		rules, a configuration is a mutable object with members that
can be
		added and deleted.

		I propose that we change the specification to remove any
implied
		"inheritance" relationship between these two kinds of
resources.
		So a deep revision is not a configuration, but rather is
just
		a special kind of revision.

		I also propose that we replace the term "baseline" with the
term that
		Jeff has always preferred, namely "deep revision".  Although
the
		former term is intuitive to many/most advanced CM users, I
don't find
		that it is meaningful to the wider audience targetted by
DeltaV.
		In contrast, deep revision emphasizes the key aspects of the
concept,
		namely that it is immutable (a revision) and it refers to
all members
		of a collection (deep).

		In this context, I am willing/happy to remove my earlier
objection
		to saying that a configuration is a collection (I can hear
Jim Amsden
		chuckling in the background, and probably Brad Sergeant as
well :-).
		The members of collection are revisions, and the binding
names of
		a member is the GUID of the history resource that contains
that revision
		(as Brad proposed on Monday).  Then you just use normal
BIND/DELETE
		requests to add and delete revisions to a configuration.

		If there are no violent objections, I'll make a pass through
the protocol
		making these changes so we can see what this would look
like.

		Jeff,Brad: Could you mail me the current state of your
changes to
		the protocol, so I can minimize the "merge" that I'll need
to do
		to combine your changes with the ones I propose to make?
Thanks!

		Cheers,
		Geoff