Re: URI Opacity Principle (was: Re: use of fragments as names is irresponsible)

at some point in the spring of 1959, as it became apparent to john mccarthy and the researchers in the "artificial intelligence project"[0], that there were
advantages to syntactic distinctions between terms which to be taken literally and those which were to be interpreted, "quoted" expressions appeared in his
description of their language's compiler.

  eval[e] = [
     ...
    first[e] = QUOTE -> first[rest[e]];
     ...
    ]

despite this, it was not until the mid-eighties that the distinction between operators which expected evaluated arguments and those which did not was
standardized in the distinction between functions and macros in common lisp.

 
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:
> 
> You mean you don't object to the object,
> or was a bandage wound around the wound?
> Is the dump so full we will have to refuse
> more refuse?  When I saw the tear in the
> web, I shed a tear, but should I intimate
> this to my intimate friends?
> 

in even a short passage overloading becomes a burden for the reader. 

> Overloading identical syntax.  Natural
> language does it and so did the web
> designers.
> 

to what advantage?

just as common lisp improvemed upon early lisp dialects by making variations in the calling semantics apparent in the lexical expression rather than by burying
them in the function definitions, the standards which build on xml might be improved were they to make an explicit distinction between nomination and interpretation.

where xml and uri syntax are already capable of distinguishing,

< ... href='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type' />

and

< ... href='"http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type"' />

or

< ... href='data:,http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type' />

from

< ... href='quote:http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type' />


are w3c's constituents well served by standards which fail to employ such distinctions to express their intent?

...

Received on Saturday, 18 January 2003 11:56:05 UTC