(Lost in the noise perhaps - so asking again) - Is a trailing slash 'better' than a trailing hash for vocabs namespace IRIs?

So (I think!) I know all the pro's and con's of using either a trailing
slash or a trailing hash for vocab namespace IRIs. Basically it boils down
to hashes meaning you'll always get info on all the terms in a vocabulary,
even if you only want info for one specific term, whereas using a slash
means I can always get just the info for any specific, individual term I
request.

Note: using slashes provides the ability to get the best of both worlds -
i.e., small responses when explicitly asking for info on just one term, but
if you want info for all the terms in one HTTP response, then just serve up
that complete vocab response when the base namespace IRI itself is
dereferenced.

Here's a nice simple illustration of the basic difference:
- Slash: QUDT's 'CurrencyUnit' term (i.e., click on '
https://qudt.org/schema/qudt/CurrencyUnit') and you get a nice clean,
concise, and precise set of info on just the one term you asked for -
lovely!

- Hash: DPV's 'JointDataControllers' (i.e., click on '
https://w3id.org/dpv#JointDataControllers') and you get bombarded with a
huge document, with a daunting Table of Contents on the left, and info on
hundreds of other terms that I didn't ask for, and so had no interest in
whatsoever (don't get me wrong - this is fantastically detailed and
potentially very useful information, but it's simply not what I asked for!).

So based on the greater flexibility and future-proofing of using slash
(i.e., it offers the best of both worlds, whereas hash is forever limited),
I've become firmly of the opinion that slashes are just 'better' that
hashes, and in fact are simply 'more correct' (i.e., all IRIs should be
uniquely dereferencable).

I also think the distinction is critically important when creating
vocabularies intended for widespread and long-lasting use (such as the DPV
vocab above). For throw-away or pet projects, sure, it doesn't really
matter (yet even then, I still think slashes are the 'more correct' option).

I know that the convention from the W3C has tended to be to use hashes, but
I think in hindsight that was a mistake, and that the advice from the
Semantic Web community as a whole should now be to adopt slashes
consistently for all new vocabularies. (And it's not like using slash has
no precedent - major 'authoritative' vocabs like QUDT, Schema.org, gist,
SOSA, SSN, (even the venerable FOAF!) all use slash).

I'd love to hear this group's thoughts. (For reference, I did ask the gist
community if they recorded their discussions around their decision (in
2019) to formally switch gist from hash to slash (here
<https://github.com/semanticarts/gist/issues/725>), but it seems they
weren't recorded, and I've also raised the issue with the DPV group
directly too (here <https://github.com/w3c/dpv/issues/53>)).

Cheers,

Pat.

*Pat McBennett*, Technical Architect

Contact  | patm@inrupt.com

Connect | WebID <http://pmcb55.inrupt.net/profile/card#me>, GitHub
<https://github.com/pmcb55>

Explore  | www.inrupt.com

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