RE: Documents, Cars, Hills, and Valleys

Joshua Allen wrote,
> > > This example doesn't apply.  A URI is an *identifier*, a much more
> > > appropriate comparison would be with "a word".
> > 
> > Which is exactly what I said.
> > The identifier here is "that" (supplemented with a gesture).
>
> Nope, this is why I keep rejecting your position.  URIs are intended 
> to be first-class identifiers.  URIs are the same as words.  To say 
> that all URIs have the same level as ambiguity as the word "that" is 
> to say that all *words* have the ambiguity of the word "that".

This is daft ... "that" is a perfectly respectable designator, you use 
it yourself every day. In context, indexicals like "that" are typically 
completely unambiguous, and referential use of them is completely 
unproblematic.

> It's not a matter of right or wrong -- if I accepted your position 
> that URIs are so ambiguous, and accepted that you need to disambiguate

> *all* URIs,

It's not my position that all URIs need to be disambiguated. My position
is that URIs only have a referent in context, and that sometimes the
context is sufficient to eliminate ambiguity, and sometimes it isn't.
When it isn't it makes sense to add more context.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Monday, 22 April 2002 19:05:08 UTC