- From: David G. Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu>
- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 22:28:08 -0500
- To: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>, Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
- Cc: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>, Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>, timbl@w3.org, fielding@ics.uci.edu, Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no, uri@bunyip.com, lassila@w3.org, swick@w3.org, jeanpa@microsoft.com, cmsmcq@uic.edu, dsr@w3.org, lehors@w3.org, ij@w3.org, slein@wrc.xerox.com, jdavis@parc.xerox.com
At 7:08 PM -0500 10/24/97, Tim Bray wrote: >I don't think Dan was asking me, but And I don't think you were asking me, but... > >1. if the XML spec says URL and somebody sends me a doc with an > external reference to urn:ietf:rfc:1661 I probably won't be > able to resolve it, but at least I have some self-defense because > I can make a strong case that it's not a URL, so I can tell the > sender he's not XML-conformant. >2. If the XML spec says URI and the same thing happens, then I have no > defense, because the sender can say "That's a URN, and a URN is a > URI, and the spec says I can give you URIs." I.e. conformance > without interoperability. > >I think this qualifies as breakage as a direct result of using URI >rather than URL, but then I'm simple-minded. Yes, you are being simple minded, because the _same_ problem afflicts your solution. I can send you a "file:" URL; you can't prevent me without limiting the legal URL schemes for XML (and "file:" is too useful to trash). My simple-minded take is that broken references are broken references, and we _can't_ prevent them, in any kind of addressing scheme. The fact that your laptop was able to check the wrong filesystem for the file on _my_ server is rather irrelevant. Broken is broken. Location independence is really useful (demonstrated fact). The counter-argument that location independent names can break is very weak given that location dependent identifiers also break regularly. -- David _________________________________________ David Durand dgd@cs.bu.edu \ david@dynamicDiagrams.com Boston University Computer Science \ Sr. Analyst http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/ \ Dynamic Diagrams --------------------------------------------\ http://www.dynamicDiagrams.com/ MAPA: mapping for the WWW \__________________________
Received on Friday, 24 October 1997 22:40:35 UTC