- From: David G. Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu>
- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 15:08:56 -0500
- To: Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>
- Cc: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>, Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>, 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, lehors@w3.org, ij@w3.org, slein@wrc.xerox.com, jdavis@parc.xerox.com
At 1:37 PM -0500 10/25/97, Dave Raggett wrote: >On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, David G. Durand wrote: > >> 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. > >But there is nothing to stop regular URLs being used as location >independent identifiers. This is just a matter of how you use >the URLs, e.g. you could use a directory service to find a copy >without caring as to where the copy is held. Amaxing how every surfacing of this topic results in recapitualtion of the same onld arguments. The difference is perhaps best given by an analogy: We often cite books by their "names" A (title, author) pair, but sometimes something more complex. The location-based naming scheme of books, by library, floor, shelf and position would also work. Further, my local librarian might be smart enough to take a copy of his shelf rather than sending to the British Museum. That doesn't change the fact that the _normative_ interpretations of the names are very different -- one is satisfied only by a particular document, the other by whatever object resides at a region of space. My librarian might be making a mistake if the BL changes buildings (as they are in the process of doing now). Once they've changed buildings the meaning of floor 1, shelf 2555, book 23 is different. The goal of URN schemes is to insure that a social (and technical) infrastructure are in place to prevent such changes of meaning insofar as possible, and to enable the construction of name resolution mechanisms (whether social or technical). This is rather irrelevant to the question of what to call a locator that is intended to be either a URL or URN. Martin's point that applications that "just fetch things" should not care seems very sensible to me. Are we getting closer to finding out if there's an official definition of the term URI? -- 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 Saturday, 25 October 1997 15:10:44 UTC