Re: Dates in URIs?

Schleiff, Marty scripsit:

> The Finding does say, "Assignment authorities may publish specifications
> detailing the structure and semantics of the URIs they assign", which
> could result in usable metadata. However, the Finding does not explore
> how to express those specifications in a meaningful way, how to
> publish/find such specifications, or any examples of URIs including
> structured and semantical metadata. 

I should think prose would be a perfectly adequate way.  Here's an
example:  if you go to http://www.reutershealth.com (I used to work for
them) and mouse over one of the three links under "For the Professional",
you'll see a URI like this:

http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2006/11/09/professional/links/20061109clin008.html

(It's actually wrapped in a javascript: URI, but that's an implementation
artifact.)

Now that URI is packed with metadata, and Reuters Health guarantees its
presence (or did as of last year) to their customers: the publication
date appears (twice), the newswire (professional), and the news category
(clin = clinical news).  Furthermore, the last path component is a story
identifier unique across all Reuters Health stories.  As such, this is
a fine example of a richly semantic URI, but only to those who know the
conventions; furthermore, whether you can depend on those conventions
is a matter partly of contract (most people don't have one) and partly
of inertia (there is no reason to change them as of now, but there may
be a reason in future).

I hope this is helpful.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan@ccil.org   http://ccil.org/~cowan
Assent may be registered by a signature, a handshake, or a click of a computer
mouse transmitted across the invisible ether of the Internet. Formality
is not a requisite; any sign, symbol or action, or even willful inaction,
as long as it is unequivocally referable to the promise, may create a contract.
       --Specht v. Netscape

Received on Friday, 10 November 2006 16:37:04 UTC