- From: Joseph Reagle <reagle@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 14:33:00 -0500
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@apache.org>
- Cc: www-tag@w3.org
>Note that all of the algorithms, methods, and other tokens are >named within a flat name space rooted at >http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig-more# Point of information on the use of '#' in the xmlsec specifications. This convention was borrowed from RDF at the outset of xmldsig. (I believe its was used in RDF because of [1] and its rules for composing identifiers). While I probably would not do so again, it was the best practice for 'URI-as-identifier' known to me at the time. This convention has been continued within the xmlsec related specifications (xmldsig, xenc, and now xkms). [1] http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Fragment.html '''This means that identifiers for arbitrary RDF concepts should have fragment identifiers. This, in turn, means that RDF namespaces should end with "#".''' It was not adopted because of any particular desire for a "flat" name space. (That simply wasn't our concern.) And while I don't feel strongly about: http://example.com/foo# over http://example.com/foo I still do find: http://example.com/foo#bar convenient for namespace management. Our specifications have names/ids that correspond to each identifier, so describing that identifier is as simple as redirecting from the namespace/identifier URI to the URL of the actual specification. (Unfortunately, many clients forget the fragment identifier upon redirection...) Maintaining information in a separate structure corresponding to a heirchical path seemed like more bother than it merited. However, if one has a relatively large namespace I think it is an appropriate strategy and one I have asked of IANA for example. If the TAG were to able to provide some guidance (amongst all that discussion <smile/>) that this practice should be discontinued I'm sure it would have an affect on subsequent specifications -- and perhaps even XKMS.
Received on Monday, 27 January 2003 14:33:04 UTC