RE: proposal for standard NCBI database URI

> Hmm, the 10^16 genes instantiated in the volume of space 
> occupied by me are neither irrelevant (to me anyway), nor are 
> they concepts. They are very real instances of physical 
> material objects - at least under one definition of gene.

My point is: the existence of an URI doesn't imply that you have to use
them. Of course, gene type is important, but under certain circumstances,
there will be need of URIs for individual genes. For example, if you were a
structure biologiest who wants to compare the 3D structure of the a protein
under different physilogical condition, gene type won't be sufficient. Or,
if you were a anatomist, you probably won't be interested in any
gene-related concepts at all.  There should not be any "rules" to "govern"
or "discriminate" concepts in terms of URIs.  It will be largely determined
the application context.  Of course, the more general a concept or (URI) is,
the more sharable it will be.  But on the other hand, the less specific
action it will drive an application. 

>
> in your example I presume the ID gene/123 was intended to be an ID for 
> a gene type rather than an instance - or perhaps not?

In that particular case, what the URI represent is irrelevant.  The point I
wanted to make in the original message is try to say that we shouldn't use
the URI of an electronic record to represent the "resource" that is
described by the record.

Cheers,

Xiaoshu

Received on Friday, 12 May 2006 01:57:21 UTC