Re: "Hash URIs" and content negotiation

Richard Cyganiak wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> One good practice for identifying non-document resources is to use "hash 
> URIs" like http://example/john#me, and to serve a description at the URI 
> obtained by taking the part before the hash, e.g. http://example/john.
> 
> Now let's say I want to serve both RDF and HTML descriptions of John. 
> That is, both formats should be available from http://example.org/john, 
> depending on the request's Accept: header. How to do this?
> 
> a) Just return the requested type of content right at 
> http://example.org/john
> 
> b) Redirect to two different URLs, depending on the requested type, e.g. 
> http://example.org/john.html and http://example.org/john.rdf
> 
> I notice that the SWBP Vocabulary Recipes [1] suggest b). I have a hunch 
> that a) is problematic because it's a bit ambiguous, 
> http://example.org/john#me could refer either to John, or to an anchor 
> within an HTML page, if there's no 303 redirect in between. So, is only 
> b) allowed, or is a) fine too?
> 
> Comments?

This is the oldest and least rewarding discussion in the SW community!

You're very right of course, it's problematic to conneg in context of 
such URIs. This is why I always preferred slash URIs! Ah well...

I guess we're in a
"Doctor doctor, it hurts when I poke my finger in my eye" situation 
here? Sometimes conneg is best avoided...

cheers,

Dan

> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/#recipe3
>