Re: "Hash URIs" and content negotiation

On 7 Nov 2006, at 21:24, T.Heath wrote:
> I've posed the question "when should I use hash vs slash URIs?" on  
> the semanticebfaq.com wiki - answers/contributions encouraged!  
> <http://www.semanticwebfaq.com/index.php? 
> title=When_should_I_use_hash_vs_slash_URIs%3F>

Tom, I agree with your post, but I think that's the wrong question.

For web documents, the answer is clear. Web documents have slash URIs.

A question arises only for other, non-document resources. But simple  
slash URIs (which respond with 200 OK) are not allowed according to  
[1]. The remaining options are

1. hash URI
2. slash URI with 303 See Other
3. slash URI with 404 Not Found
4. some kind of non-HTTP URI

I will ignore 3 because it's boring and 4 because it's non-webbish.

To me, the interesting question is: When should I use hash vs 303  
URIs to identify non-document resources?

(There are clearly pros and cons for both options, some of which are  
listed in [2], and that's the context in which I asked the original  
question: How does one correctly implement content negotiation for  
hash URIs?)

Cheers,
Richard

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#httpRange-14
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/




>
> Cheers,
>
> Tom :)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: semantic-web-request@w3.org on behalf of Dan Brickley
> Sent: Tue 07/11/2006 3:50 PM
> To: Richard Cyganiak
> Cc: Semantic Web
> Subject: Re: "Hash URIs" and content negotiation
>
>
> Richard Cyganiak wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> One good practice for identifying non-document resources is to use  
>> "hash
>> URIs" like http://example/john#me, and to serve a description at  
>> the URI
>> obtained by taking the part before the hash, e.g. http://example/ 
>> john.
>>
>> Now let's say I want to serve both RDF and HTML descriptions of John.
>> That is, both formats should be available from http://example.org/ 
>> john,
>> depending on the request's Accept: header. How to do this?
>>
>> a) Just return the requested type of content right at
>> http://example.org/john
>>
>> b) Redirect to two different URLs, depending on the requested  
>> type, e.g.
>> http://example.org/john.html and http://example.org/john.rdf
>>
>> I notice that the SWBP Vocabulary Recipes [1] suggest b). I have a  
>> hunch
>> that a) is problematic because it's a bit ambiguous,
>> http://example.org/john#me could refer either to John, or to an  
>> anchor
>> within an HTML page, if there's no 303 redirect in between. So, is  
>> only
>> b) allowed, or is a) fine too?
>>
>> Comments?
>
> This is the oldest and least rewarding discussion in the SW community!
>
> You're very right of course, it's problematic to conneg in context of
> such URIs. This is why I always preferred slash URIs! Ah well...
>
> I guess we're in a
> "Doctor doctor, it hurts when I poke my finger in my eye" situation
> here? Sometimes conneg is best avoided...
>
> cheers,
>
> Dan
>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/#recipe3
>>
>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 21:26:52 UTC