[Mailman-Developers] Architecture for extra profile info

[Richard Wackerbarth]

On Apr 27, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> Richard Wackerbarth writes:
>> Primary Key == An identifier of the server's choice that identifies
>> a unique instance of the specified resource.  It is important to
>> note that the client CANNOT rely on any particular scheme for
>> mapping other keys to this identifier.
> 
> That's true for resources that were added after the client was
> written, but there's no reason I can see why we shouldn't make it easy
> for people to write URIs by hand if they know something about Mailman.

Being able to "write URIs by hand" is a violation of the HAL design because it locks the interface into a particular implementation. The design principal is that "things will change".

Although there is an advantage in having URIs that convey semantic value, (for example using a "short name" to designate one of the lists on the server), we should leave that mapping to some configuration aspect of the particular installation.

Remember that the REST URIs are intended to be mechanisms for automated agents to access resources. They are not intended to be the substitute for a user's search interface.