[Tagging] Reviving the conditions debate

[Eckhart Wörner]

Hi Pieren,

Am Mittwoch, 13. Juni 2012, 18:42:54 schrieb Pieren:
> > negative aspect ... the proposal puts a lot of information into keys and theoretically allows for an unlimited set of keys
> +1
> But this could be fixed by moving all variables into the value part
> (syntax to be defined)

There are quite a few drawbacks of moving all variables into the value part:
* the syntax needs to be defined; it needs to be compatible with old values; humans must be able to understand it (not just programmers)
* nobody ever used it; a large portion of existing tags needs to be converted
* it needs to fit into the 255 byte key/value limit

I'm not saying that conditions inside keys is the best invention since sliced bread, I'm just saying that conditions inside the value of one key is not a good idea either.
Ultimately this needs to be resolved at a lower level, in the database schema. However, given how slow the database schema evolves, we need an intermediate solution.

Eckhart