- From: <ccjason@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 19:51:57 -0500
- To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
Yaron writes... > What really scares me is a scenario where I have a directory filled with > references but I'm using an RFC 2518 client... Good observation... > I would also invoke precedent here. In every system I have ever heard of > that supports references (read: links) a COPY always copies the link not the > destination. I would be very hesitant to go against three decades of > accumulated experience without a good reason. I philosophically agree and that this is this is the way that I'd want it to work when I use it... But the other folks seem to have a good point also. Let me toss a hand-grenade that way though. Not expecting a modification of one resource to affect another is a universal problem for down-level clients. Regardless of COPY. If someone builds up a site with a newer tool and creates (direct) references... and if someone with an older tool starts working on the site... the person with the older client is going to experience aliasing... which he and his tool don't expect. And if we design the spec to avoid the aliasing for downlevel tools... the user will unknowingly do (less dangerous, but still unsatisfactory) things like turning references back into resources. A person with this older tool and older expectactions is going to make a mess of the site one way or another... regardless of COPY. And a person with an old client, but new expectations, will quickly upgrade tools... So I'm sort of supporting Yaron here... but... And I'm also suggesting that perhaps (I don't know) that some of our "downlevel-client" arguments might be red-herrings. It's something to recheck. ...and if not a red herrings... perhaps (shudder) we should take the philosophy of limiting the operations that a downlevel client can perform in the presence of references... rather than trying to guess at the least dangerous or least inconsistant behavior. As a site administrator, that's REALLY what I'd want the server to do. Jason.
Received on Friday, 26 February 1999 19:49:27 UTC