RE: Tombstones

["Brian Smith" <brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Gregorio wrote:
> >  However, if the system is doing a hard-delete and is only 
> > preserving the id of items that have been deleted, it does
> > not make any sense to represent those deleted items using
> > the atom:entry element and doing so runs the risk of
> > confusing certain clients into thinking that they're
> > looking at some piece of content that still actually
> > exists on the server.
> 
> Sorry, that's a straw-man, these are completely different 
> feeds living at different URIs, there's no chance of 
> "confusing certain clients".

I agree that there are ways to avoid the confusion. But, the latency
from having to sync with the extra feed is unacceptable, especially when
multiplied by dozens or hundreds of feeds. James's tombstone proposal is
almost free performance-wise. It is easier to implement, in my
experience. And, more importantly, it has the nice property that the
server is giving the client the data anyway, so the client might as well
make use of it.

A feed of deleted entries is not very useful on its own. If a separate
feed is desired, you might as well go all the way and make that feed a
FeedSync feed. 

- Brian