Re: iDNR, an alternative name resolution protocol

Roy T. Fielding wrote:
> 
> >I might have misunderstood what URI syntax governs. So here is the question:
> >
> >Web browsers (e.g. Netscape or IE) have a edit box for user to enter their
> >URLs. In Netscape, it's called "Location:". In IE, it's called "Address:".
> >Now the question is: does the URL syntax governs how users should enter
> >their URL into the edit box, including the encoding used?
> 
> Not unless the web browser forces it to be a URL, which none of them do.
> That is just a text entry dialog that accepts anything from full URI
> to partial domain names to free-text queries.

IETF specs rarely govern local behaviours; their target,
if not their exclusive domain, is agreements *between* hosts
on the internet.

So when you send a URI over the wire (e.g. in an HTML
document) you're bound by the URI spec. But not, necessarily,
when you fidget with them locally.

By analogy, when I type
	% ping www12

there are local conventions that turn that into www12.w3.org
before doing a DNS lookup.

-- 
Dan Connolly
http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Wednesday, 2 September 1998 18:47:26 UTC