APP Meta-discussion

[Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@xxxxxxx>]

<co-chair-mode>

I launched this a month ago, and think it's important, but discussion  
has been light.  The question is, what do we need to add to the  
protocol-04 draft before we're done?

My conclusions are:

1. The only thing that already seems to have rough-consensus support  
in principle is some way of indicating draft/published status and  
markup style (MarkDown, wiki, etc).
2. There is a lot of interest in SOAP, but PaceSOAPGateway is moot  
until we actually see a proposal; I believe we have a commitment from  
Dare Obasanjo to produce one.
3. I think PaceCategorize is dead.  Lots of -1's, nobody was willing  
to stand up and say "yes, this is good".
4. The ball on PaceBatch is still in play.  Unlike PaceCategorize,  
there are people who like the idea.  However, there are others who  
say "premature optimization".  Kyle says he'll do some numbers to  
help us ascertain what, in the real world, PaceBatch might buy us.

So... the evidence suggests that the Atom Publishing Protocol is  
closer to being finished than I had thought.  We need a SOAP  
proposal, we need to make up our minds about batch updates, and we  
need to work in the pieces of PacePubControl that actually have  
generalized support.  I haven't heard consensus support for the  
addition of any more functionality.  -Tim

=======================================================================
Selected input from the WG:

Obasanjo:  http://www.imc.org/atom-protocol/mail-archive/msg01062.html

1. SOAP
2. Draft entries
3. CRUD on photos/collections
4. CRUD on lists/collections

(I think that PaceBatch would cover Dare's #4)

Snell: http://www.imc.org/atom-protocol/mail-archive/msg01065.html
1. First-class notification
2. Generalized control parameters
3. Updating batches of resources
4. Determining collection resource type
5. APP implementation meta-data
(In followup, says that #1 and #2 are show-stoppers for him, the  
others nice-to-have)

Ayers: http://www.imc.org/atom-protocol/mail-archive/msg01067.html
+1 to Obasanjo, he thinks that #3 in that list is already covered and  
for generic objects not just photos.
Also, wants arbitrary data structures: lists, trees, graphs

Obasanjo: http://www.imc.org/atom-protocol/mail-archive/msg01068.html
With respect to Snell's goals: doesn't care about #1, the rest are OK  
but not show-stoppers.

Although the Google people never addressed this thread directly, they  
made it clear they'd like:
1. Category tagging of entries in place without replacing the whole  
entry
2. Boxcar updates, a bunch of CRUD operations batched up in one message.