Re: theory and practice (Re: URIs for Physical Items)

At 11:12 AM 10/27/00 -0400, Michael Mealling wrote:
>On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 10:34:55AM -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>> At 09:35 AM 10/27/00 -0400, it was written:
>> I worry that some people see all that's come so far as a barrier to what
>> they really want to do, without a whole lot of concern for what everyone
>> else might want to do.  Top-down specification doesn't seem to be doing
>> much to get developers excited and put URIs into the world.
>
>Simon, I'm worried that your view is colored by not being aware of
>how people are actually using URIs outside of XML based applications.
>That list (plus others registered by the IANA) that Leslie posted 
>is a good example of URIs that are being widely used in places that
>have no relationship to XML at all (or even web browsers for that matter). 
>Are you explicitly ignoring them or are you just not aware of them?

Did I mention that the URI core community consistently interprets any
questioning of its mission as ignorance of basic facts, another factor
which doesn't endear it to non-URI-loving developers?  Condescension isn't
exactly a well-known successful marketing strategy.

I'm well-aware of the schemes Leslie listed.  Several of them are in fact
'contenders for the side of a bus', and many of them are commonly used in
the 'guy on the street' understanding of URIs.

A lot of people fall off the bus, however, once it's no longer possible to
make the connection between the URI and the thing identified.  HTTP, FTP,
and email all provide infrastructures for that.  URIs generically don't,
and I've yet to see a straightforward explanation of why that is so exciting.

Perhaps I'm merely ignorant or blinding myself to the facts, of course.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

Received on Friday, 27 October 2000 11:36:49 UTC