RE: Comments on the "new" 2518

Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse on this point, but I'll throw in one final
$.02, before I let it go...  

> Require it to be atomically, and those implementations that can't do it 
> will either ignore the requirement, or stop supporting MOVE. I don't 
> think this is what anybody wants.

We're not proposing *requiring* the all or nothing behavior, and never have.
We're just trying to make the point that in a spec., one would think that
SHOULD language leans in the direction of the desired behavior.  In other
words, you're recommending what the behavior should be.  In the case of
moving a collection, Xythos doesn't agree that the behavior SHOULD be
"best-effort", but rather "all-or" nothing.  If the consensus is that
"best-effort" is indeed the desired behavior, then fine, we're in the
minority.  

If however, the SHOULD language is there because (as you put it Julian, and
I think Geoff alluded to) "The RFC2518 language IMHO accurately reflects the
fact that an implementation of MOVE varies a lot based on the underlying
technology, and that there simply *are* cases where it can't be done
atomically." (i.e. a lot of servers *can't* implement it that way, for
whatever reason), then perhaps we should look more closely at why the
language is the way it is.  Do we sacrifice desired behavior for feasibility
in implementation?  You could also argue the point that strictly from a
compliance perspective "SHOULD be all-or-nothing" wouldn't change the
compliance of existing servers; although it would certainly change the
"intended" behavior.


... like I said, my final $.02 on that particular point, and now I'll let it
go.  However, I would like to continue pursuing adding the ability for a
client to request an all-or-nothing MOVE operation.  It would be nice to add
a METHOD:

MOVE-ALL (or MOVE-ATOMIC, or MOVE-COMPLETE)

... which MAY be implemented by a server, and if implemented MUST result in
an all-or-nothing MOVE.


Regards,

-John  



-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de] 
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 11:04 AM
To: John Barone
Cc: 'Geoffrey M Clemm'; 'Kevin Wiggen'; w3c-dist-auth@w3.org;
w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
Subject: Re: Comments on the "new" 2518

John Barone wrote:
> You state that the SHOULD language surrounding the "best-effort" 
> behavior of MOVE allows us to implement the operation as 
> "all-or-nothing" and still be compliant with the spec.; fair enough.
> However, I'd think that the SHOULD language in a spec. should lean in 
> the direction of the desired/expected behavior.   From Xythos' 
> perspective, "best-effort" is not the desired behavior, but then 
> again, we're just one voice.  If the belief is that "best-effort" is 
> the consensus for the desired behavior when MOVEing a collection, then 
> so be it.  However, if in future revisions the language changes to a 
> MUST, then Xythos would have to argue vigorously against such a change.
> ...


Hi,

I'd like to emphasize that - as far as I can tell - nobody is suggesting any
change like that. The RFC2518 language IMHO accurately reflects the fact
that an implementation of MOVE varies a lot based on the underlying
technology, and that there simply *are* cases where it can't be done
atomically.

Require it to be atomically, and those implementations that can't do it will
either ignore the requirement, or stop supporting MOVE. I don't think this
is what anybody wants.


Best regards, Julian

Received on Monday, 13 March 2006 19:30:11 UTC