Re: WebDAV and Dynamic Content

  You're right that I would like a gorilla to be able to edit these
  resources.  :)  I think fundamentally that if the WebDAV group decides
  to only support editing static resources and not dynamic resources, it
  will be a limited protocol.  Roy and Brett raised some of the technical
  challenges, but I believe the challenges are just that... challenges,
  and not unconquerable obstacles.

Serge.  I think we all want to see WebDAV support dynamic resources.
And I think a few folks would say we already do.  I don't quite agree.
I think we haven't really flushed them out well enough to be
fully interoperabile.  But I and I believe a few others
believe that there are only a few more improvements we can make
before we start getting to the "harder" parts to spec out carefully.
Right now most of the movers and shakers on the list are pretty
tied up on other parts of WebDAV and their jobs.  They can't take on
another task without sacreficing something(s) else.  And although
dynamic resources aren't defined as fully as they should, I don't
think we've defined anything in regard to them that will prevent
us from defining them more completely later.

That being said anyone is free to clarify the behavior of
dynamic resources.  You included.  Whoever(s) does it should
read up on the history of them on the mailing list.  That should
provide an understanding why a source property is used. I can also
provide a document/email I started to write that might
provide a framework for looking at clarifying, classifying,
discussing and understanding
dynamic resources.  I don't have the time to follow through with
this or even track it myself though.

Just one last meta'ish comment.

I think the folks that settled on the source property felt that a
gorilla client *would* be able to use them as defined.  They aren't
conceptually complicated.  I agree.  But I think some clarification
will also be needed before they can pass the gorilla test.

And unless someone investigating dynamic resources finds something
in the base spec that is likely to negatively impact the spec'ing of
dynamic resources, I wouldn't hold up the base WebDAV spec for
this.  I'd make it a follow-up proposal that builds/clarifies the
base WebDAV spec.  This is both to insure
that the main spec gets out in a timely fashion... and to make the
main WebDAV spec less intimidating.  We've already done this for
several other issues.

J.

Received on Sunday, 21 November 1999 18:15:13 UTC