Re: clarification on the use of fragments

Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
> In the interest of clarification, the reason that some of us advocate
> *not* putting several resources in one file using fragments is that it
> then becomes difficult to serve (standard web) pages that give only
> information about one resource, because the server doesn't see the
> fragment id.

Yes, if you want one thing described per file, then describe one thing 
per file, if you want two things described per file, then don't be 
surprised when that file describes two things, rather than one.

> This may be only a minor frustration in cases where only
> a handful of resources are described in a single file, but is
> devastating when the resource contains many. For example I work with
> the NCBI Taxonomy, which currently names species using the fragid. As
> the file is > 200M you can imagine that it hurts when I put such a URI
> into my browser and all 200+M starts coming back.

Indeed, hence the original email, several hundred million (!!) resources 
in one file is definitely *not* a good idea, and using fragments in no 
way suggests, indicates, or infers that you should do this, or that this 
would be a wise move.

ps: several != 200+M


> -Alan
> 
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 3:43 PM, Nathan <nathan@webr3.org> wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> For some reason I keep hearing people inferring that if you use fragments
>> you must for some reason put all your descriptions of things / resources in
>> a single "file".
>>
>> I'd just like to confirm that couldn't be further from the truth if it
>> tried.
>>
>> /resources/Foo
>> /resources/Bar
>> /resources/Baz
>>
>> /Foo#t
>> /Bar#t
>> /Baz#t
>>
>> However, with #fragments you can *optionally* put the description of one or
>> more "things" in a single "file"
>>
>> /things#foo
>> /things#bar
>> /Baz#t
>>
>> Fragments allow you to be as verbose or as terse as you like with your data.
>> This is particularly useful for logically grouping related resources, for
>> instance in ones FOAF profile you may have:
>>
>> /bob#me
>> /bob#certificate
>> /bob#assistant
>>
>> But you most certainly are not constrained to putting the descriptions of
>> all your things in one "file", that's about as ridiculous as it sounds.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nathan
>>
>>
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 10 November 2010 22:05:36 UTC