Ok, let me get this straight. We are going to have<div><br><div>1) XRD's with <Subject></div><div>2) XRD's without <Subject></div><div>3) XRD with <Host> instead of <Subject></div><div>4) Someone might come along and decide lets have <Title> instead of <Subject></div>
<div>5) Anyone can have anything else instead of <Subject></div><div><br></div><div>Is this your idea of future compatibility?</div><div>Why is it so difficult for people to see that this whole thing is leading to a mess?</div>
<div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:43 PM, SitG Admin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sysadmin@shadowsinthegarden.com">sysadmin@shadowsinthegarden.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
I think I have a better understanding now. I will try to explain it:<div class="im"><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Are you suggesting that you guys know something which those guys didn't know?<br>
</blockquote>
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No. But . . . forward-compatibility.<br>
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History has shown us that we (and others) will continue to have ideas that are not covered by existing specs, requiring us to either come up with new specs or modify existing specs. We don't need to specifically anticipate these ideas, we don't need to know all the details, to foresee that they (probably) *will* be pursued. If, at that time, the XRD spec does not support them, their development will be slowed down, and their implementors may go make a rival spec to accomplish/support what *they* are after, faster than XRD can be modified to allow for it. This splinters what would otherwise be a single XRD community into several similar groups, and divides the attention of those whose interest is rooted more in the compatible ideas than steadfast loyalty to particular specs.<br>
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By putting greater flexibility into the XRD spec than any specific *need* has been shown for, compatibility with future ideas is made more likely. Today the Subject may be necessary for 99% of use cases; that percentage may change again in future, though.<br>
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-Shade<br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="http://hi.im/santosh">http://hi.im/santosh</a><br><br><br>
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