Re: What if an URI also is a URL

Hi,

it is clear a uri must be retrievable both for humans and machines to  
process. But aren't the solutions of having the server redirecting to  
a different document based on the content type or using a 303 a bit  
overkill? And will they be followed by everyone, on every blog, wiki  
or web2.ish webapp of the planet?

"All uris should work in browsers", well all urls do, so let us  
consider a third solution, if the document at  "http:// 
www.example.com/mophor" is an HTML document embedding RDF data using  
RDFa or another way of embedding RDF in HTML about "http:// 
www.example.com/mophor#me", there you get your human and machine  
readable document for the same thing at the same place. Isn't that  
wonderful, no need to hack the server to redirect urls, no need for  
duplication of code to represent data in a way for machines and in  
another for humans and all used uris are accessible urls.

Am I on the right track or is there something I missed?

Cédric

---
Cédric Mesnage
PhD Student
cedric.mesnage@lu.unisi.ch
http://www.inf.unisi.ch/phd/mesnage/
http://myunderstanding.wordpress.com/


On Jun 6, 2007, at 9:07 PM, M. David Peterson wrote:

>
> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:51:49 -0600, r.j.koppes  
> <rikkert@rikkertkoppes.com> wrote:
>
>> But if, on the web page http://www.example.com/mophor there is a  
>> section with id "me", how do I refer to that particular section in  
>> the web page in a RDF document (which might contain anything, even  
>> unrelated to me as a person)? How do I make sure that the reader  
>> (machine / human) interprets this reference as being a web  
>> location (fragment in web page) instead of the thing, me.
>
> If there is any single thing in RDF that I could point at and state  
> "there, > http://example.org/foo#bar < that's the problem with RDF"  
> it would be that very same statement.  There is a simple solution  
> to the problem: You use '?' instead of '#'.  This ensures that the  
> thin, dumb client can remain thin and dumb, and the server can do  
> the work to interpret what resource it should return using the  
> query string to make that determination.
>
> I understand that from a human perspective, '#' makes sense.  But  
> if within the scope of RDF is "to make data human readable" then  
> let me just make my position on this clear: That effort died a  
> horrible, miserable death a *LONG* time ago.  Let it go.
>
> In summary: The barriers to entry for RDF would become considerably  
> less if the syntax was focused towards working with the current  
> HTTP servers of the world as well as the thin, dumb clients of the  
> world, instead of against them.
>
> -- 
> /M:D
>
> M. David Peterson
> http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354 | http:// 
> dev.aol.com/blog/3155
>
>