[OASIS Issue Tracker] Commented: (TOSCA-21) Issue 6: "id" vs "name"

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    [ http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/TOSCA-21?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=30658#action_30658 ] 

Frank Leymann  commented on TOSCA-21:
-------------------------------------

The spec already says that the "id" attribute is mandatory, and the "name" attribute is optional.  This is expressed in the text, in the grammar, as well as in the XSD. 

The spec also says explicitly that the value of the "id" attribute MUST be unique within the target namespace. Again, this is expressed in the text as well as in the XSD by specifying the type xs:ID for the "id" attribute. 

Note, that an xs:ID is an NCName, i.e. a value must not contain a ":" and must not start with a "-".  Especially, if an application requires an "id" to be human readable and comprehensible, the application is free to do so under the constraint, that this value must be an NCName. 

Many standards use that pattern to allow human readable names for elements and require a unique id for the elements they define. 

In summary: I wholehartedly vote for keeping the id/name pattern. 

> Issue 6: "id" vs "name"
> -----------------------
>
>                 Key: TOSCA-21
>                 URL: http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/TOSCA-21
>             Project: OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) TC
>          Issue Type: Sub-task
>            Reporter: Tobias Kunze 
>            Assignee: Tobias Kunze 
>
> This issue actually has three possible solutions:
>    1. Keep "id" and drop "name" (or make it optional); same for XML and YAML
>    2. Keep "name" and drop "id" (or make it optional); same for XML and YAML
>    3. Adopt solution (1) for XML and (2) for YAML; define translation between formats
> Aspects to consider are, among potential others:
>    A. Uniqueness of identifiers
>    B. Scope of uniqueness: local to the template or global
>    C. Enforcement or validation of uniqueness
>    D. Familiarity of construct
>    E. Culture ("geeky" vs "user-friendly")
>    F. Likelihood of acceptance
>    G. Simplicity
> During our call on 2012-06-07, is seemed that
> i. There was consensus that (A) is required but (B) only at the local level; import of external identifiers can occur either namespaced or optimistically
> ii. There was consensus that (C) uniqueness must be enforced. However, there was disagreement on where it should be enforced. Derek suggested that implementations should make use of XML's enforcement of the uniqueness of the "id" attribute. I suggested that this could be trivially carried out by the implementation itself, quite possibly with better error messages. Some of the argument may have rested on (D) Familiarity of users with the XML "id" attribute.
> iii. There was a difference in (E) among the TC

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