Subject: Re: [Geojson] Processing Model

From: Jeff Yutzler <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:22:47 -0500

My philosophy on this comes down to "do no harm". If your processor is
acting as a pass-through, it should pass-through the whole thing - whatever
is there. It isn't a specification thing, it is just being benevolent. If
your processor modifies the data somehow, by default it should not pass
through things it does not understand because what was true in the input
might not be true in the output.

I agree that mandating this doesn't work because is difficult if not
impossible to test. But in the absence of guidance, people will often do
the wrong thing. I believe SHOULD statements are appropriate.

-Jeff

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Allan Doyle <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 14:37:17 -0500
> Subject: [Geojson] Processing model
> I’m starting a new thread to talk about the GeoJSON processing model and
> my dislike of the language that’s trying to creep in.
>
> GeoJSON is a format.
>
> You can decide if you have valid GeoJSON by either reading the spec and
> mentally testing it, or someone can write a parser that reads a file and
> says “yes” or “no” to the question of whether it is GeoJSON or not. Better
> still, a linter that can give you hints about why it might not be.
>
> If there is any language at all in the spec about a process needing to
> consume extension content and produce a file with the same content, how do
> you test that? You can’t run the same test as above. At best you have to
> run it twice, once on the input and once on the output. Then you have to
> compare the non-GeoJSON parts (the parts the test program doesn't even know
> how to parse because it’s not GeoJSON and the parser just knows about
> GeoJSON).
>
> How do you do that?
>
> And, in my world, for a format, *why* would you do that? There are times
> you want a pass-through and times you want a filter. Why preclude filters?
>
> Give the format to the world, and let the world decide what to do with it.
>
>         Allan
>