[Cosmo-dev] <administrator/> cmp tag

[Travis Vachon]

Hi folks

When I was making additions to the CMP protocol for the struts->  
spring work I added an <administrator> tag to the CMP representation  
of a user.  <administrator> works differently than tags like  
<firstName> in the following way:

When a user representation omitting <firstName> is PUT to /cmp/user/ 
{username} for an existing user {username} the server simply does not  
change the user's first name. In contrast, when a user representation  
omitting <administrator/> is PUT to /cmp/user/{username} the server  
interprets this as a request to make the user NOT an administrator.


This break in symmetry between tags means that clients need to  
"remember" administrator status. This isn't really ideal for a client  
that _just_ wants to change a property, since it first needs to fetch  
a representation, make sure it remembers administrator status, and  
make sure it includes <administrator/> when it puts the representation.

This also means it is easy for a client to mistakenly take away his  
or her own administrator status, which would then require contacting  
another administrator to rectify.

To fix this, we have two options:

a) instead of the presence of <administrator/> signifying  
administrator status, we could make <administrator> a tag containing  
a boolean value that behaves like the other tags

or

b) add a <nonAdministrator> tag. The presence of this tag would make  
a user not an administrator, while the presence of <administrator>  
would make a user an administrator.

In either case, omitting any of these tags would not have any effect  
on the user.

If there are no preferences, I'm going to go for a), probably in the  
0.7 time frame, though if I find a few extra minutes I may try to get  
this in sooner.

-Travis