On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 06:31:19AM -0800, Garret Wilson wrote: > Think about it in terms of XML: There is a specification for the XML > API, the DOM: http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/core.html . > However, the API specification still depends on the definition of > what XML itself is (e.g. what constitutes an XML name, what types of > nodes there are, what types of children nodes can have): > http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ . Many people I've communicated with > in the Subversion community seem to think, by way of analogy, that > the DOM specification (just in code comments) is all that's > needed---there's no point in taking the time to write the > specification for XML itself. I wholeheartedly disagree.
It may seem like that if all you look at is the code and this list. It seems you haven't seen some of the files in this folder yet: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk/notes Or the acknowledgements sections of webdav and deltav RFCs. Granted, we might not have a precise spec for properties names. I agree very much that it would be useful to have one. I guess no spec exists because property names of all things appear as something quite simple and straightforward. The complexities aren't readily apparent until you run into them. You have the benefit of hindsight.