Simon St.Laurent wrote, > I think the 'rest of us' might well benefit from clearer > distinctions between URIs and the resources they identify, But Simon, that's a pretty tall order, because there's no end to the number of distinct resources a URL (nb. UR*L*) might locate. John Cowans example (I forget the URL, it was a time- server of some sort) was pretty good. Does that URL identify entities (particular sequences of bits on any given occasion), transient HTML documents (again changing over time); a persistent HTML document (but with parts which change over time); the current time in whereever; John's favourite page; John's favourite example; etc. etc. depending on how imaginative you are. Given that the list of distinct resources is open ended, it's hard to see how anyone could hope to come up with a general account of their relationship with the URL which is less abstract than the one we already have. URNs, or any other scheme which actually specifies identity- criteria, on the other hand, have a fair chance of being unequivocal. Cheers, Miles -- Miles Sabin Cromwell Media Internet Systems Architect 5/6 Glenthorne Mews +44 (0)20 8817 4030 London, W6 0LJ, England msabin@cromwellmedia.com http://www.cromwellmedia.com/Received on Thursday, 7 September 2000 09:41:16 GMT
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