Re: [xml-dev] RESTful operations on document fragments

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

Jim Ancona wrote:
> There's an active blog discussion going on right now between (in 
> alphabetical order) Subbu Allamaraju, Tim Bray, Roy Fielding, Joe 
> Gregorio, Mark Nottingham. Dare Obasanjo, Aristotle Pagaltzis, Sam Ruby, 
> Robert Sayre, James Snell, and probably some others I've left out, about 
> using PATCH as a means to do RESTful partial updates. It's not exactly 
> what you asked for, but maybe another way to solve the problem.
> 
> You might start here and see where the links take you:
> http://www.snellspace.com/wp/?p=894

Wow.  I can barely look at the PATCH discussions without thinking "Wow, 
what an incredibly nasty hack," but it's definitely something worth 
thinking about.

Maybe it's just my priorities, but a URI format that lets you identify 
parts of resources seems like a safer path to take than adding a new 
HTTP method and then having to come up with various formats for doing 
the patching.  (Not to mention upgrades to web servers.)

Yikes!

Maybe the 1997 XLink approach is worth further pursuit.  (And on 
reflection, that's probably why I asked the question here - this list 
has had related conversations in the past.)

Thanks,
Simon