Re: What if an URI also is a URL

M. David Peterson wrote:
>> No. It cannot identify both a document and a person.
> 
> Why?  Are you suggesting that what I have done -- i.e. used a domain I 
> presently maintain control over to provide information embedded into the 
> same document intended to serve different purposes, and do so quite 
> legitamatelly and successfully -- is in fact, wrong?  If yes, how so?  
> It works and works well.  Nothing has been broken as a result, and the 
> same URI had identified both a document and a person.

It makes sense to say that a URI cannot identify both a person and a 
document or else it's failing to identify anything (or is at best a 
partial identifier and we need a mechanism for defining its scope).

What I still don't get is why anything has to identify the document(s). 
If you really care to talk about the document(s) themselves you could 
*then* have a URI for them and another for yourself. If I'm 
dereferencing a URI that I have been informed identifies you I'm doing 
so because I have an interest in you and wish to obtain information 
about you - which receiving said documents does. I'm not going to be 
interested in the web page in and of itself, only in you.

Now, some time ago (when this question seemed still unsettled) I defined 
<http://www.hackcraft.net/jon/> as identifying myself.

Since this matter was unsettled, and since I didn't get (and still don't 
get which is the enlightenment I'm hoping to acheive here) why a URI 
identifying myself couldn't return a representation I have the following:

URI                Resource            Representation
http://.../jon/    Me                  text/html
                                        OR
                                        application/xhtml+xml
                                        OR
                                        application/rdf+xml

Now, at some point I'll come to update that website (maybe, I'm very lax 
about it) and in light of the above being incorrect I'll have:

URI                Resource            Representation
http://.../jon/    Me                  303 ->

http://.../jon/doc Implementation      text/html
                    artefact I don't    OR
                    care about          application/xhtml+xml
                                        OR
                                        application/rdf+xml

If I should care to say something about a resource that exists to hold a 
description of me then I would want it to have its own URI. I don't 
though, it exists purely to describe me. And I can't see why it need 
exist at all.

Received on Sunday, 10 June 2007 03:09:26 UTC