- From: Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>
- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 10:49:42 +0100
- To: SW Best Practices <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>
Dear all, This is in response to an action on me from Feb 20. Unfortunately, I have a meeting on Monday at the time of the telecon so must send regrets. The next VM telecon is scheduled for Friday, 17 March, so perhaps we should try to work this out beforehand on the list. > [NEW] ACTION: Tom find a place for the footnote on "simplest" recipe > [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2006/02/20-swbp-minutes.html#action16] This refers to a point addressed David Booth's "re-review" [1] of the Cookbook [2]: Recipe 2 says it is the "simplest possible configuration", but this is true only if the URIs have already been fixed. (And if they have, then it is likely that the adminstrator has already configured their server appropriately, and thus is not in need of this cookbook.) However, if a 303-redirect service (such as thing-described-by.org or t-d-b.org) is used, the server configuration is clearly easier and less error-prone, because it only requires that the server send the correct MIME type, which the server may already do anyway. The 303-redirect service does the rest. In particular, the use of a 303-redirect service: - Does not require the coordinated maintenance of two URIs (the original versus the forwarding location) - Does not require URI rewriting (except to add .rdf extension if desired). - Does not require that MultiViews be disabled. - Does not require that a particular directory NOT exist. The idea of using a 303-redirect service is quite new, and I would not want to imply that the practice is more accepted or widespread than it currently is -- indeed, thus far I only heard one person on a previous teleconference say that they are using it -- but I do think it is important to at least acknowledge it as an option, since it *is* a simpler approach. Perhaps something like an editors' note would be appropriate. For a more detailed explanation of the "303-redirect service" approach, see the SWBPD thread starting at [3]. The suggestion from David is to insert a sentence or footnote acknowledging the "303-redirect service" approach in the context of saying that some of the recipes described in the cookbook are "simplest possible configurations" (on the grounds that use of a 303-redirect service is even simpler). David points to its use in Recipe 2 [4], but the claim is also made for Recipe 1 [5], and, more generally, in the introductory section "Choosing a Recipe" [6]. In order to make sense to the reader, however, the notion of "303-redirect service" would need to be introduced and explained _before_ the sentence saying that, configuration-wise, it is the simplest. For example, a reference be made to this approach at the end of the section "URI Namespaces" [7] -- right after the presentation of hash and slash namespaces [8]. The text there could say: <p>Readers should be aware of a third type of vocabulary URI under discussion at the time of writing: URIs based on a 303-redirect service such as http://thing-described-by.org. Though simpler to implement than approach described in this document, the 303-redirect approach has not yet been implemented for stable, published RDF vocabularies and is not used in any of the following recipes. <a href="appendixb">Appendix B</a> describes this approach in more detail.</p> Following Appendix A ("Vocabularies that use PURL"), then, Appendix B could say: <h2 id="redirect">Appendix B. Vocabulary URIs based on a 303-redirect service</h2> <p>URIs of this type are formed by appending the URI of a descriptive resource as a query string to the base URI of a 303-redirect service such as "http://thing-described-by.org". The domain thing-described-by.org delegates authority for defining the meaning of such a query URI to the domain cited in the query string (i.e., the part following a question mark).</p> <p>In principle, then, one might coin the URI "http://thing-described-by.org?http://example.org/foo" as an identifier for the Foo vocabulary. An HTTP GET request against the URI for the Foo vocabulary, or against a property or class in the Foo vocabulary, would result in a response code of 303, thus conforming to the second of the two <minimum requirements> articulated below for the publication of RDF vocabularies. If, in addition, the URI "http://example.org/foo" were to identify an authoritative RDF description for the vocabulary, and the server providing that description were to return a MIME type properly identifying it as such, then the use of "http://thing-described-by.org?http://example.org/foo" could be said to conform to first of the <minimum requirements> as well.</p> I have not yet plugged this text into the draft as I thought it might be more productive to discuss it here first. Tom [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Feb/0109.html [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/ [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Jul/0045.html [4] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#recipe2 [5] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#recipe1 [6] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#choosing [7] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#naming [8] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#slash [9] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#minimumrequirements -- Dr. Thomas Baker baker@sub.uni-goettingen.de SUB - Goettingen State +49-551-39-3883 and University Library +49-30-8109-9027 Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen
Received on Sunday, 5 March 2006 09:46:04 UTC