[DAS] Adjacent feature extension

[Thomas Down]

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Jonathan Warren <jw12 at sanger.ac.uk> wrote:

> As to feature-by-id, I know changing behaviour is potentially a very
>> disruptive change, but I think we can potentially do this purely because
>> servers don't tend to implement it correctly anyway. Clients can happily
>> filter out any additional features returned by old servers, and if any
>> clients are reliant on the server including all overlapping features then as
>> far as I am concerned they are either a) targeting specific servers rather
>> than DAS-wide and thus unaffected, or b) already broken :)
>>
> So you agree feature-by_id should be changed if we have the stomach for it?
> - good and Gustavo too. Well done Andy - You have just agreed to write Spec
> 1.7 or 3??? ;) Your argument above can be used for leaving the spec as it is
> then as well - but ideally I agree and guess we can call it spec 1.61
> assuming other people agree.
>

I don't know quite how productive this particular worm-can will be, but FWIW
I'd be happy to see it change.  The current spec has caused significant
hassle (with both my client- and server-dev hats on!).

                  Thomas.

PS. One thing I would ask is: can we discuss the merits of the
feature-adjacent extension independently of any possible changes to the core
spec.  It's addressing some specific needs, and if we can get the last few
wrinkles sorted out I'm very eager to get it finished and deployed soon.