- From: Christopher St John <ckstjohn@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:42:57 -0500
- To: public-lod@w3.org
I wanted to say something about picking URIs during my lightning talk at an upcoming Semantic Web Dallas meetup. But I've run into a problem reconciling the recommendations in HtPLDotW with the recommendations in "Cool URIs don't change" (and my own experience with enterprise databases and natural keys) Specifically, in Section 3 "Choosing URIs" of HtPLDotW, the suggestion to use mnemonic names (names linked to some of the data about the object) has proven to be problematic in practice. The "What to leave out" section of "Cool URIs don't change" is very explicit that this is an anti-pattern and should be avoided. Now, there's a legitimate balancing act between using the "don't depend on natural keys" best practice and minting Linked Data URLs that are amenable to pattern-based links, but for the most part doing things like including the word "Berlin" in a canonical URI is just asking for trouble in the long (200 year?) term (just ask the residents of Bombay) There's an escape hatch if you choose to use a widely recognized naming scheme (like, say, ISBN numbers), but even then there are risks if the semantics of the identifier scheme don't match _exactly_ with the way the scheme is being re-used (ISBN numbers don't correspond to books in the way most people expect, and the fact that they can be re-used generally comes as a surprise) But, before I go saying critical things about HtPLDotW in front of a live (and well informed) audience, I wanted to do a sanity check. Thanks for any feedback, -cks -- Christopher St. John cks@praxisbridge.com http://praxisbridge.com http://artofsystems.blogspot.com
Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 05:43:37 UTC