RE: Comments on 06 spec

Comments below:

On Thursday, January 22, 1998 2:00 PM, Judith Slein 
[SMTP:slein@wrc.xerox.com] wrote:
>
> Collections
>
> 1. State explicitly that a WebDAV server must treat its HTTP URL 
hierarchy
> as collections, whether or not they were created with WebDAV's MKCOL. So
> they must have resourcetype = collection, etc.

I agree.  As I recall, you made this comment when you reviewed the spec. 
right before it was released.  I'm not sure why it wasn't addressed then, 
but language to this effect will be added to the next draft.

> Links
>
> I think it would be worth introducing the notion of links somewhere in
> section 2.  Section 3.4 refers to them without having introduced them at
> all, and support for links between resources of arbitrary media types is
> really a significant contribution of WebDAV.  Here's some text, if you 
like:
>
> "Although HTML resources support links to other resources, the Web needs
> more general support for links between resources of any media types.
> WebDAV provides such links. A WebDAV link is a special type of property,
> formally defined in section 11.4, that allows typed connections to be
> established between resources of any media types.  The property value
> consists of a source URL and a destination URL, and the property name
> identifies the link type."

I agree.

>
> I also wonder if the formal definition of link is right.  It says:
> <!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+)>
> But the accompanying text says you are trying to allow for multiple links
> of the same type on the same resource, so do you really mean:
> <!ELEMENT link (src, dst)+>
> Or are you trying to allow a single link to have multiple sources or
> multiple destinations? Or both, perhaps:
> <!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+)+>

Hmm.

Right now we use the link element in the source property, which is defined:

<!ELEMENT source (link)* >

Combined with the definition of link:

<!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+)>

This allows the source property to contain multiple links, each of which 
can have multiple sources and multiple destinations, as is shown in the 
example in Section 12.11.1.  It seems that there is a slight advantage to 
keeping the definition of link singular (i.e., only one single link) since 
this way you can specify a property to only include a single link.  If link 
was defined like:

<!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+)*>

It would be impossible to specify only a single link without creating a new 
production.

So, my inclination is to leave the specification as-is. Do you agree?

> Typos
>
> 7.9.1 "...are not otherwise effected." Should be "affected".

Agreed.

> 11 "(i.e., to further restrict . . .)" should be "(e.g., to further
> restrict . . .)"

This one is moot.  I think that i.e. is OK here, but the best solution is 
to rewrite the sentence so i.e. isn't needed.

- Jim

Received on Friday, 23 January 1998 16:23:17 UTC