draft-hansen section 2.4 & 5.4 comments

I'm a bit unclear about the relationship of section 2.4, "Definition of
operations", and the registration template, section 5.4.  The template
seems to only require description of the associated protocols, not any
details of the operations of those protocols; IMO, a good thing.
Moreover, unlike other subsections of section 2 (except 2.1, for good
reason), section 2.4 isn't referenced by the template, suggesting a
disconnect.  I'd personally like to see section 2.4 talk about
protocols, and have that referenced from the protocols section of the
registration.

Something else I'd like to see in this new section 2.4 (or in the
template if my 2.4 suggestion isn't accepted) is a guideline to choose
a preferred protocol.  It seems to me that it's important that at most
one protocol be designated preferred so that any would-be dereferencer
would know what protocol to start with, lest the results of the
interaction be inconsistent between the different protocols.  I
understand that the text is copied from 2717, and AFAIK we haven't had
any problems with that, but in practice, all existing registrations
are associated with a single protocol.

I also wonder what is meant by "applications" in the
"applications/protocols" portion of the template, and what purpose does
it serve to have this information in the registry?  Can we not just
stick with "Protocols" or "Application protocols"?

A couple of editorial nits in these sections ...

If the text in 2.4 stays, I'd suggest changing "HTTP resource" to "http
resource".

In the registration template, there are two places for
"Applications/protocols".  I assume that to be a duplication error
(also present in RFC 2717 sec 6, I observe).

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.          http://www.markbaker.ca
Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies   http://www.coactus.com

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2005 14:47:21 UTC