RE: MIME as a vCalendar element separator - bad move...

[Skip Montanaro <skip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pardon my rambling here.  Taken as a whole I think there is an idea floating
through this message, though the individual parts don't rub up together
comfortably.  I'm obviously having trouble putting an idea I find patently
obvious into a convincing argument.  Instead of trying to merge them into a
cohesive document I'll just separate the individual "essays".

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If vCalendar objects were made up on of non-printing characters like GIF
images, DXF files, Word documents or ELF executables we wouldn't even be
having this discussion.

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Lewis> But wait a second, vcalendar is a compound document format with 
Lewis> separators.  MIME is a compound document format with separators.  Why 
Lewis> are we reinventing the wheel?

Just because MIME is a compound document format with separators doesn't mean
it has to be the only one we ever use again.  Nor does it mean it's the best
one for every task where you need a separator.

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Some more elementary comparisons with real life:

    Look in the knife drawer in your kitchen when you go home.  I'll bet you
    have more than one knife (some butter knives, a carving knife, a bread
    knife, a few steak knives perhaps).

    Many people drink milk.  Most drink cow's milk.  Some people drink
    goat's milk.  Others drink soy milk.  There's room for more than one
    kind of milk.

Saying 

    vcalendar is a compound document format with separators.  MIME is a
    compound document format with separators.  Why are we reinventing the
    wheel?

is like saying

    Cow's give milk.  Why do we need goats?

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There is, believe it or not, software available that parses and generates
vCalendars.  I see no particular reason to break them gratuitously.

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MIME is meant to encapsulate documents or bundle multiple individual
documents into larger aggregates.  For instance, a co-author might use a
MIME multipart document to send the chapters of a book to me where each
individual file was a Word document.  When I split up the multipart document
each element stands on its own, at least from an application program
standpoint.  Each element can be handled by separate applications without
relying on the others.  I can ship Chapter 1 to Sherry, Chapter 2 to Mabel,
and keep Chapter 3 for myself.

I have an intuitive notion of what an event is.  In general, it involves
multiple people coming together at the same time and place (ignoring video
conferences and so forth for a moment).  Operating on any of the three
components independently doesn't make sense the way operating on the
individual Word documents does.  Giving Sherry the time, Mabel the list of
people and keeping the location for myself just gives each of us an
incomplete picture of the whole.  They aren't meant to stand alone.

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I guess what I'm trying to say is MIME is fine encapsulation and for
coarse-grained composition of relatively large objects.  vCalendars are
generally itty bitty things.  In my opinion you're trying to be too
fine-grained with MIME, in effect, driving a tack with a sledgehammer.

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Now, why didn't I use MIME separators or BEGIN/END separators above?  They
weren't appropriate for the job...

Skip Montanaro     |       Musi-Cal:  http://concerts.calendar.com/
skip@calendar.com  |    "It doesn't matter where you get your appetite as
(518)372-5583      |    long as you eat at home." -- Sloan Wainwright