Re: request to clarify and improve Subversion property name specification

On 1/29/2012 10:55 AM, Branko Čibej wrote:
> ... I can't help wondering why you didn't ask about valid property
> names /before/ you created a bunch of invalid ones. Sounds like you
> made one too many assumption.

Wait, seriously? You're saying that, whenever there is an API call and I
pass something to it and it comes back with no errors, that nevertheless
I should spend days asking on various lists just to make sure that the
values I sent to the API really was OK?? Surely you jest.

The appropriate thing to do would be to consult the Subversion
specification. But there is no such specification. In fact, in the face
of lack of such a specification, I /did/ ask about properties over
SVN+DAV---two times in March 2007. In fact, I pointed out then that the
Subversion support of WebDAV properties was and is
incorrect---namespaces are not handled correctly:

http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2007-03/1047.shtml

I received absolutely zero responses. So I again asked about Subversion
property names in December 2007:

http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2007-12/0640.shtml

I got the same number of responses: zero

So I sighed, decided it wasn't worth the days/weeks of trouble trying to
get someone to care, and created an encoding scheme that appeared to
work just fine over SVN+DAV:

http://www.garretwilson.com/blog/2008/04/08/subversionpropertynamespaces.xhtml

How was I supposed to know it that years later it would turn out that
JavaHL didn't like the property names? Are you suggesting that every
time I use some API, I go find and dig through the source code---not
just the source code to that API, but all the source code to related
APIs? (Because, after all, the property restriction here wasn't even in
the DAV+SVN code itself.)

I'm going to leave it at that. I don't have time to be drawn further
into a pointless argument. If someone here cares about fixing these
problems or writing a public specification, more power to them.

Garret
Received on 2012-01-29 20:15:05 CET