Re: [apps-discuss] APPSDIR review of draft-gregorio-uritemplate-07

[Graham Klyne <[e-mail]>]

On 07/12/2011 09:07, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> Discussion issues:
>> >  1)No IANA actions are required by this document.
>> >
>> >  comments or suggestions:I suggest something in the document to be added to IANA, for example,the operators in section 2 and 3 of this document.
>> >  If we register these operators in IANA, it will help the future use of these operators/characters.
>> >
>> >  for example:
>> >
>> >        +   Reserved character strings;
>> >
>> >        #   Fragment identifiers prefixed by "#";
>> >
>> >        .   Name labels or extensions prefixed by ".";
>> >
>> >        /   Path segments prefixed by "/";
>> >
>> >        ;   Path parameter name or name=value pairs prefixed by ";";
>> >
>> >        ?   Query component beginning with "?" and consisting of
>> >            name=value pairs separated by "&"; and,
>> >
>> >        &    Continuation of query-style&name=value pairs within
>> >            a literal query component.
>> >
>> >     The operator characters equals ("="), comma (","), exclamation ("!"),
>> >     at-sign ("@"), and pipe ("|") are reserved for future extensions.
> I think that's worth discussion, but my initial reaction is that a registry here will make interoperability much more difficult, and possibly harm adoption.
>

I agree that this does not seem an appropriate case for an IANA registry.

(a) The design is very closely coupled with URI syntax, which IMO makes it more 
usable.  A registry might encourage divergence.

(b) Addition of new "operators" could potentially have deep impact on template 
handling code, and such might be encouraged by allowing IANA registration of 
extensions.  I think this could harm interoperability if extensions are registered.

(c) The overhead of creating and managing a registry doesn't seem to be 
justified by any clear benefit.

#g
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