rationale for Prowl published syntax

[els]

***From Miles:

"I think you said..


1. It would be good if the format had both ends of any transaction
clearly
stated in the record
2. It would be good if the format was such that the transaction record
was
basically identical, no matter where hosted


Both of these things sound like worth doing to me. As you say, it will
make
processing and checking of records a whole bunch easier and I think
that's a
worthy goal in itself. I guess that both of these points are format
specific
but lets just say that it makes sense that the canonical format should
have
this feature. That way harvesters could just charge around the net
and
harvest records as pure text, dump them somewhere else, and process
later
(amongst other advantages)."

***

It's good to have someone else see some logic behind the Prowl syntax/
format. But just to make sure that we are on the same page, I was
referring to the transaction record syntax as published in Tweeter,
for example, and not necessarily as published or posted in Twollars.
(You may have been referring to the same publication instance, I'm
just trying to minimize any misunderstanding.)

I would likely have to flesh this out in later replies to this post,
but for now, let me just say that it is crucial for "reporter" or
"harvester" applications to be able to determine right away *where* or
to *what entity and period* a published record belongs.

For now, I will just refer to the http://tyaga.org/prowl/prowl_doc.php
and scroll down or find "Published Record Syntax Guidelines" for more
background information.