Re: Library Standards and URIs

Terry Winograd <winograd@cs.stanford.edu> writes:

> Coming into this discussion from a programming-language background rather
> than a library background, I have the feeling that we are slowly moving
> towards something that is already standard in the programming domain --
> extensible collections of class or record definitions.  They provide a
> general way to deal with the inevitable tension between the desire for
> simplicity and predictability (wired-in fixed schemes that everyone uses)
> and desire for flexibility (add whatever you need on the fly). ...

I agree with Terry -- much of what has been discussed regarding URCs
would fit better in a truly hierarchical model, where the semantics of
the items can be influenced by their position in the hierarchy
(i.e. inherited from ancestors, etc.).  Thus, for something like
URN->URC->URL resolution, I would prefer a syntax like that for PRDM
(see <http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/FRESCO/annotations.html>, with a few
changes, of course ;-) instead of SGML.

However, I would also like to be able to include and identify URC
information within SGML documents.  The TEI DTD seems a good start
for that.  Although allowing arbitrary DTDs is appealing from an
extensibility point-of-view, it would never work as part of a
URN->URC->URL resolution.

Personally, I don't see why we can't do both (and more).  Following the
MIME paradigm, why don't we use media type/subtype and attempt to implement
whatever seems best for a particular application? In other words, define
separate media types for

     urc/prdm   -- for a PRDM-like URC format
     urc/tei    -- for a TEI-like URC format
     urc/bibtex -- for a BibTeX-like URC format
     urc/iafa   -- for an IAFA-like URC format
     urc/marc   -- yikes!
or even
     urc/sgml; fpi="-//blech/"  

In this way, the format of a URC is independent of the resolution
protocol, and we can let the market decide which one(s) is "best".
Furthermore, it allows us in the Web community to implement client-side
content negotiation on any URI (not just URNs) without any change
to the protocols, and without requiring that the URC be obtained by
a specific protocol.


......Roy Fielding   ICS Grad Student, University of California, Irvine  USA
                                     <fielding@ics.uci.edu>
                     <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/dir/grad/Software/fielding>

Received on Monday, 9 January 1995 20:55:49 UTC