RE: ETags?

As an implementor, I found 2518 to be an excellent specification. But
sometimes, even though the authors knew what they meant, I didn't know
what they meant. Any time the authors of a spec undergo any confusion or
disagreement about the meaning of their spec, or discover such confusion
among the readers of that spec, they've received a hint that the
specification is not as clear as they might have thought, and therefore
vulnerable to interoperability problems.
 
It seems to me that if the time and effort to clarify the meaning have
been spent, it is an enourmous waste not to make that clarification
available to potential implementors.
 
  -- Roger

	-----Original Message-----
	From: Geoffrey M Clemm [mailto:geoffrey.clemm@us.ibm.com] 
	Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:00 AM
	To: WebDAV WG
	Subject: Re: ETags?
	
	

	I agree with Elias and Julian about the excellence of Roy's
point, 
	and would point out that in my opinion, it applies to most/all 
	of the other requests for "guidance" in the binding spec for the

	behavior of functionality defined in other specifications. 
	
	Cheers, 
	Geoff 
	
	Elias wrote on 01/22/2005 10:38:02 PM:
	
	> Thanks Roy, that's an excellent point that I hadn't
considered. For the 
	> record, I am no longer opposed to the spec remaining silent on
the issue.
	> ________________________________
	> 
	> Roy T. Fielding wrote:
	> 
	> >
	> > On Jan 21, 2005, at 2:44 PM, Elias Sinderson wrote:
	> >
	> >>> [...] Including a single sentence which states that
clients can't 
	> >>> necessarily depend on live properties being the same on
different 
	> >>> bindings to a given resource.
	> >>
	> >>
	> >> ... doesn't seem like an undue amount of verbiage in the
spec.
	> >
	> >
	> > It does to me, and I guess an explanation is in order.
Let's
	> > say that a given live property definition does specify that
its
	> > value must remain the same on different bindings to the same
	> > resource.  In that case, the client can depend on them being
	> > the same and that simple little addition creates an
unnecessary
	> > contradiction between what should have been orthogonal
	> > specifications.  There is no reason for the binding
specification
	> > to make blanket statements when there are no conditions that
hold
	> > for all live properties -- that is why we have property
definitions.
	> >
	> > Developers don't need any more guidance here.  What they
need are
	> > shorter specifications so that they don't have to waste
their time
	> > digging through meaningless tripe just to understand the
interface.
	> >
	> > ....Roy
	> >
	> 
	>