[rest-practices] Atom as a generic container? [was Re: Media types]

[Mark McLoughlin]

On Fri, 2010-04-16 at 15:53 -0400, Bill Burke wrote:
> 
> Bryan Kearney wrote:
> >> Eoghan suggested something similar here:
> >>
> >>    https://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/rhevm-api/2010-April/000025.html
> >>
> >>> application/atom+xml
> >>
> >> This would just be e.g.:
> >>
> >>    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
> >>    <atom:feed xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
> >>      <atom:title>VMs feed</atom:title>
> >>      <atom:updated>2010-04-16T09:47:55.288+01:00</atom:updated>
> >>      <atom:id>http://{host}/vms</atom:id>
> >>      <atom:author>
> >>        <atom:name>RHEV-M</atom:name>
> >>      </atom:author>
> >>      <atom:entry>
> >>        <atom:title>vm2</atom:title>
> >>        <atom:content>
> >>          <vm>
> >>            <link rel="self" href="http://{host}/vms/3"/>
> >>            <id>3</id>
> >>            <name>vm3</name>
> >>            <actions>
> >>              ...
> >>            </actions>
> >>          </vm>
> >>        </atom:content>
> >>
> >> That's simple enough:
> >>
> >>    
> >> http://git.fedoraproject.org/git/?p=rhevm-api.git;a=commitdiff;h=3fff835a
> >>
> >> But now, what about supporting clients who prefer json or yaml? Does
> >> "application/atom+json" make much sense, I wonder?
> >>
> >>> application/atomcat+xml
> >>
> >> We'd use this to describe e.g. 'vm' and 'host' categories?
> > 
> > So... one of he items I heard about why REST and not SOAP is that the 
> > SOAP envelope is terrible. What I see here is starting to look like such 
> > an envelope. Will you be supporting "natrual" xml and json as well?
> > 
> 
> On one hand maybe somebody wants to listen for updates to VMS.
> 
> On the other hand, I don't see the point of using Atom for returning 
> collections.  It was written as a format for feeds not a collection format.

Ah, Eoghan just pointed out how we got our wires crossed here

I read "Atom does it!" as "Atom is perfect as a generic container"
rather than (what you intended) "Atom has multiple media types"

Good - I was extremely dubious about using Atom for all collections

Cheers,
Mark.