- From: Jim Davis <jdavis@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 15:53:44 PST
- To: <w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>
At 05:50 PM 12/19/98 PST, Larry Masinter wrote: Summary: Larry raises two objections to "structural" properties. I believe both are faulty. >One could easily imagine non-standard metadata properties >being used effectively by an interoperable client... but structural >properties such as ...'backpointer' ... will actually >confuse such clients, since these properties will need >to be listed, but the clients cannot treat them as if they >were some kind of metadata or resource description at all. Without addressing the epistemological issues you raise (between "structural" and "real" metadata) it's not clear to me that the DAV:resources (backpointer) property would be any more confusing to a generic client than any other non-standard metadata property. Suppose, for example, one constructed a hypertext system of arguments, refutations, and justifications, where resources stored the text and the argument structure was represented as (link) properties. While I am unsure whether a (hypothetical) "RHET:refutes" property is 'real' or 'structural' metadata, it seems reasonable to use WebDAV in this way. But to a client ignorant of the RHET properties there is no important differences between RHET:refutes and DAV:references. Both contain a set of DAV:href elements. So please explain how DAV:references will confuse clients. >For example, COPY says: > > Live properties SHOULD be duplicated as identically behaving live > properties at the destination resource. > >Now, this clearly doesn't apply to 'backpointer'. If you >were to have a server with a 'backpointer' live property, >and were to supply (reasonably) a 'propertybehavior' element >that suggested that all live properties should be copied, >then no resource would copy. I believe you are mistaken. The spec says "identicially behaving". Suppose resource R is a references to target T. If you copy T to (new) resource S, then there are no references whose target is S, so the DAV:references property will be empty on S. It's the same behavior as before. So the COPY of T will succeed fine. Or suppose you COPY resource R. This is just the same as if you had done a second MKREF, and hence the DAV:resources property of S will now have a new item. It seems to me that either resource may copied without a problem. Please explain how you think this is paradoxical, confusing, or impossible. best regards Jim ------------------------------------ http://www.parc.xerox.com/jdavis/ 650-812-4301
Received on Monday, 28 December 1998 18:54:02 UTC