Idioms

[Joe Gregorio <joe.gregorio@xxxxxxxxx>]

If you've noticed we have several similar patterns of behaviour
within the protocol. The primary one I observe is
what I call the "List Management" idiom. In "List Management"
we are manipulating a list of resources with the 
following characteristics:

1. A URI to POST to to create new resources and
    add them to the list.
2. A URI for each resource in the list which
    supports GET, PUT and DELETE.
3. A list resource that supports 
    navigating through all the resources.

Examples of such patterns include
the basing entry publishing facet:

1. PostURI
2. EditURI
3. FeedURI

In addition "categories", "users", 
"templates" and "simple resources"
could all fall into this pattern.

I've seen thoughts on this divide down into two 
basic camps, those that believe if it's a list we
should use the Atom Syndication Format, and
there are those that believe we can use other
formats if the nature of the list diverges too far
from that of a list of 'entries'.

Questions:
1. Do others see the same pattern?
2. How to we incorporate this observation into the protocol spec?
    Maybe outline the idiom at the beginning and then
    as we cover each part of the protocol say whether
    it follows this idiom?
3. Do we need to reach a concensus on the reuse
    of the syndication format before moving forward
    on the rest of the items so we don't end up 
    rehashing the same arguement for every part of the
    protocol that falls into the List Management idiom?

    Thanks,
    -joe

-- 
Joe Gregorio        http://bitworking.org