Re: Why do we need working resource ids ?

From: Geoffrey M. Clemm (geoffrey.clemm@rational.com)
Date: Tue, May 30 2000

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    Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 07:53:38 -0400 (EDT)
    Message-Id: <200005301153.HAA23580@tantalum.atria.com>
    From: "Geoffrey M. Clemm" <geoffrey.clemm@rational.com>
    To: ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
    Subject: Re: Why do we need working resource ids ?
    
    
       From: Edgar@EdgarSchwarz.de
    
       a CHECKOUT returns a working resource id. Wouldn't it be possible
       to drop that ?  Normally a CHECKOUT works in the context of a
       workspace (explicit or implicit). So I expect a server to give me
       the working resource if I later GET and specify versioned resource
       and workspace.
    
    I believe Edgar makes an excellent point here.  Until recently, our
    answer would have been "because a server does not allocate a URL for
    each working resource, and so a working resource id is required for
    those working resources without their own URL's".  But if we take the
    design teams recommendation from last week and require that a server
    provide a working resource URL for every working resource, then
    working resource id's are no longer needed.  I think this
    significantly simplifies the protocol, so I vote to accept Edgar's
    suggestion.  We then just need an optional argument to the CHECKOUT
    routine that tells the server to allocate a new URL for the working
    resource (by default, the server would just use the request URL, just
    as is done in a workspace context).  In any case, the URL for the
    working resource created by the CHECKOUT routine would be returned in
    the Location response header.
    
       BTW, the introduction to workspaces in 7.1 is too technical IMHO.
       It should describe what we want to achieve with it. E.g. that it
       is a filter or view which can help authors to coordinate their work.
       Also I think a workspace server shouldn't define a 'request workspace',
       but a 'user workspace' if no workspace header is given for a request.
    
    I believe that this concern is addressed by the proposal to model a
    workspace as just a special kind of collection.  I'll try to get something
    written up this week -- please let me know if the new description
    provides a simpler model for workspaces (I believe it does).
    
    Cheers,
    Geoff