Re: [dxwg] Profile negotiation [RPFN]

Hi Ruben,

comments inline below


On 6/5/18 7:10 AM, Ruben Verborgh wrote:
>>   Why do you think you need to enable this type of negotiation versus allowing discovery via links?
> Discovery with links would need to be specified also.
What do you mean? Links are already available in http.
> E.g., what type of links are we looking for, etc.
> So in any case, there would be a resource connecting to representations.
>
> Content negotiation is simply an existing mechanism
> for connecting a resource to representations,
> so reusing it seems better than inventing a new link-based negotiation mechanism.
You are assuming the need for negotiation. That's what I'm asking you to 
justify.
>
> Furthermore, linking assumes that there is a finite number of representations,
> and not a combinatorial explosion of all combinations that can be made.
There *is* a finite number of representations that would be available. 
You would have to configure the server to return the right 
representations, and you would have to have created each of those 
representations.
>
> Finally, it integrates with negotiation in order dimensions, such as
> "give me the French document in XML conforming to profiles X, Y, Z".
Yes, that is nice. But there are other possible dimensions to data. Why 
negotiate for this one? One can think of different versions of datasets 
as different resources if one wants. In fact, one could argue that it is 
always a different resource because it contains different values. It's a 
choice to decide that it should be treated as a representation. What 
motivates that choice?
>
>> Why is automated discovery needed?
> Because it's a manual thing otherwise.
That is a tautology.
> You don't want your client to ask you what links to follow.
Why not? That is how hypermedia APIs work. Adding negotiation as a new 
alternative means that crawling the web of data has to involve checking 
for profile options by content negotiation in addition to checking what 
is available through links.

But I get the feeling you have a specific use case in mind where this 
all makes immediate sense. *What is that use case?*
>
>> Do you have a real need to require profile creators to register their profiles with IETF?
> No such registration is needed, just like no registration of MIME types is needed.
Registration of new MIME types is needed. How do you get around new 
profiles needing to be registered?
>
> Best,
>
> Ruben

-- 
Annette Greiner
NERSC Data and Analytics Services
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Received on Tuesday, 5 June 2018 18:48:10 UTC