Re: ERROR verb

[Bill de hÓra <bill@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Henry Story wrote:


> I agree. The problem is that we seem to have come across a problem not 
> just for Atom, but for the whole XML community. I think I saw it 
> mentioned as a problem in Fielding's PhD thesis on REST, but could not 
> find the passage.
>
> It would be interesting to make a PACE and get some feedback from the 
> web community or XML community at large to see if perhaps someone is 
> working on it, or has worked on it and found some good reasons not to 
> pursue. Either of these could be very informative.

Possibly, but the case would need to be cast-iron before you'll get 
it past the likes of the W3C TAG. The issue comes down to whether 
the deployed architecture really needs a new verb of whether it's an 
Atom/syndication specific need that can be reasonably solved within 
the current architecture/protocols.


> Note also that it does in fact do nearly the right thing with current 
> web servers: they log an error message. 

I'd dispute this is nearly the right thing as it sounds much like 
using a programming language's exception handling for mainline 
control flow ;)


> The problem is larger than Atom. 

That's the case that needs to be made. If it is made then it could 
be brought to the W3C TAG perhaps. But as I said the case needs to 
be cast-iron; web arch folks are very tough about mucking with 
interface unformity. Even if the case is made it would take years, 
maybe a decade to get a new method deployed on the ground - no drama 
 intended here, just gut feeling.

cheers
Bill