Top level points

Hi,

Just noticed something at the top level, let's quickly make three sets.

   T = the set of all things
   A = the set of all things on the web
   B = T-A, the set of all things not on the web.

Okay, when it comes to "naming", there are a few different approaches.

1) X the set of all names
    - any name can be used to refer to anything

(this is the current approach, with "special cases" for things on the 
web, e.g. 303)

This implies to some people that..

2) there exists a set Y of absolute-IRIs which refer to things in set A
    and, there exists a set Z of hash-IRI which can be used to refer to 
things in set T (anything).

But it also implies to some people that..

3) there exists a set Y of absolute-IRIs which refer to things in set A
    and, there exists a set Z of hash-IRI which can be used to refer to 
things in set B (things not on the web).

which creates two disjoint sets. and further, that syntactically the set 
Z of hash-IRIs contain the set Y of absolute-IRIs, and thus <y#z> refers 
to Z as described by y.

Perhaps it's a simple thing, that because we have case (1) people have 
loads of room to argue about this stuff and get confused. And because 
some people also see case (2) it can be seen "unfair" that URIs in set Z 
can refer to anything whilst uris in set Y cannot (hence 303 rule).

TBH, all I see us doing is finding more ways to handle (1) and (2), and 
that perhaps the only clean solution is to have (3), two disjoint sets 
of names, one for things on the web, one for things not on the web. 
(note that's generic to how those names surface in syntax, or where 
they're a particular form of URI/IRI, or use a certain scheme, or..).

Perhaps it would be interesting to see if people were happy, in concept, 
with having two disjoint sets of names aliasing two disjoint sets of 
things, or whether because of the last 10 years, they'd rather stick 
with fumbling between (1) and (2).

For example, one solution may be that <http://example.org/foo> always 
refers to <http://example.org/foo#> and that to speak of the web 
resource you'd need <[http://example.org/foo]> or some such - many 
different approaches - point is though, perhaps it can be broken in to 
the 1,2,3 and let people first see which they'd be happiest with, as a 
community.

Best,

Nathan

Received on Tuesday, 5 April 2011 17:30:01 UTC