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Re: Extension mechanism


Danny Ayers wrote: 

I believe that such a mechanism can be defined without any impact on the
work that has been done so far. All I think that is needed in the core is a
means of saying whether an included element from another namespace is
additional content, *or* is additional information about its parent. I've
put a strawman on the Wiki [2]

WOW. Orthogonal Extensibility. Love it.

Contrast:

  <Envelope>
    <Header>
      <!-- information about the content -->
    </Header>
    <Body>
      <entry>
        <!-- the content itself -->
      </entry>
    </Body>
  </Envelope>

With:

  <entry>
    <!-- the content itself -->
    <metadata>
      <!-- information about the content -->
    </metadata>
  </entry>

A few points:

* metadata is actually a matter of perspective. Is the issued date content or metadata? If LiveJournal wants to capture the mood of the person while composing this entry, is that additional content or additional information about the entry?

* if we go down this path, it would be worth having something analagous to the 'mustUnderstand' attribute as defined in the SOAP specification.

- Sam Ruby