Links as atomic packages of optional attributes

[Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@cordance.net>]

I had another discussion with John Bradley about Breno�s proposal to move to �atomic� links (where both Rel and URI are zero-or-one cardinality). I agree with the point he was trying to make at the end of Thursday�s call about how helpful it would be to XRD crawlers to know what kind of metadata (if any) was at the other end of a link. But when he and I talked about it we both realized that the MediaType element could be used to convey that information.

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Of course that�s yet another element that could be reduced to zero-or-one cardinality to keep Links as atomic packages. And of course if it�s zero-or-one cardinality, then it too should can an attribute.

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So both John and I found ourselves liking the design of every Link consisting of three optional attributes: Rel, URI, and MediaType, as it would be very clear and easy to process, query, and crawl.

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Do others agree?

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If so, what happens to URITemplate? Is it a fourth optional attribute? Or are should we have two kinds of links: Link (with optional attributes Rel, URI, and MediaType) and LinkTemplate (with optional attributes Rel, URITemplate, and MediaType)?

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=Drummond