Re: Should SIMPLE be rechartered, replaced, closed, or what?

2012/10/18 Olle E. Johansson <[email protected]>:
> Let's try to focus on attacking the solution from this end and see if we can agree. I think we're done complaining over the existing solution for a while. Note that I'm not saying that we have to use XML or XCAP. Let's just talk "documents" and "subscriptions" and see where we end up.

I don't agree that we should talk "documents". Why "documents"? In
XMPP there are no "documents", but a buddylist, which yes, it's
represented in XML format but the user cannot modify it in a custom
way. For example, I don't remember now the exact syntax of the XMPP
buddylist, but it's something like this (I DO not that is not like
this):

---------------------
<buddies>

  <buddy id="[email protected]">
    <subscribe>1</subscribe>
    <allowed>1</allowed>
  </buddy>

  <buddy id="[email protected]">
    <subscribe>1</subscribe>
    <allowed>0</allowed>
  </buddy>

</buddies>
------------------------------

Is that a XML document? humm, yes, but when the user wants to block
presence for a buddy it cannot tell the server "set the allowed field
to 0 where buddy id == "[email protected]". Instead the user uploads
the FULL definition of the buddy to the server, now with
<allowed>0</allowed>.

So from this point of view this seems more a RPC protocol, something
like an "API", rather than "custom modification of remote XML
documents" as XCAP is designed for. Being constrained to specific
actions makes implementations much easier.

So I'm not in favour of talking about "documents". Instead I prefer
calling them "buddylist" and them provide an "API" for performing
actions over the buddylist (add, remove, block, allow, subscribe-to,
unsubscribe-to...), something "idiomatic". I don't want that my SIP
device becomes a Vi text editor. In this way, if me (a SIP device)
tells the server "block this user" the server easily knows WHAT to do
(block such a user and send him some spoofed "offline" presence
status). In SIMPLE/XCAP instead, when the user *modifies* a XCAP
document the server must recompute the whole document (by also
retrieving the "linked" external documents) to understand what the
desired operation of the user is.

"API" is the winning keyword in today's Internet services, but SIMPLE
provides no API at all, but just remote operation over XML documents,
in any custom way.

So forget documents, and let's design an *API*. Is there something
more extensible than an API (request method and parameters)?


-- 
Iñaki Baz Castillo
<[email protected]>
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