Re: [search-ws] Re: ATOM

["Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress" <rden@loc.gov>]

> I believe we need one mandatory response schema for interop that is
> guaranteed to be supported by all implementations.

I'll go along with that, however ...

> Choosing ATOM as that one mandatory response format has many advantages:
>
>     * We have less spec content to define and maintain
>     * We get syndication (feed) capability for free
>     * Any existing ATOM capable feed reader will work with a URL
>       representing a search defined by our spec
>     * ATOM syntax is extensible and therefor we will be able to add
>       additional attributes to our response without requiring any one to
>       update ATOM

Some of these advantages are ATOM specific.  Others, you would get with any
similar format.  For the ATOM specific advantages (syndication capability,
for example), instead of saying "Choosing ATOM as that one mandatory
response format" you could say: "supporting ATOM (in addition to the
mandatory response format)"  provides these advantages.  Some implementation
won't care about syndication capability. The ones that do would implement
ATOM.

--Ray