Semantic vocabulary proposal: From "well-known properties" to "canonical properties"

[michaeltlombardi]

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

Early in the design and implementation of DSC, I proposed that we use the term well-known properties to describe special properties that DSC Resources could use to participate in shared semantics and behaviors with the DSC engine, like _exist and _purge.

I now believe that the more semantically accurate and useful term for these properties is canonical properties_. If a resource defines a canonical property as part of its resource instance schema, the resource is opting into a contract about the possible values for that property, expectations for how the resource uses that property, and how DSC will interpret and use that property, especially for synthetic operations.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Update the documentation (and types, if the dsc_lib crate is ever intended for public publishing) to use the term canonical property or canonical properties instead of well-known property or well-known properties.

[SteveL-MSFT]

Perhaps canonical properties?

[michaeltlombardi]

I think canonical is fine, semantically - updating the issue title/body.

[SteveL-MSFT]

Agree on the proposal along with some specific doc text to indicate that resources SHALL not use the underscore prefix unless they are implementing a canonical property