Re: [dix] on the dix: URI scheme for DIX/SXIP

On 17-Mar-06, at 1:29 PM, Dan Connolly wrote:

> ntroducing a new URI scheme just for DIX is not a good use of  
> scarce community resources;
> let's not do the DAV: thing again.
>
> Instead of
>   dix:/homesite
> just use something like
>   http://dixs.org/terms#homesite

Thanks for the input Dan. Sorry you won't make Dallas. I'm not  
familiar with what happened with DAV: -- is there somewhere you can  
point for enlightenment?

Agree that we need to make good use of scarce community resources.

Not being a standards guy, I am sure that I will be butchering  
terminology -- please correct me!

The reasoning behind introducing a new scheme was we need an escape  
sequence for processing the name/value pairs and to differentiate  
data from constants etc.. Anything starting with "dix:" is known to  
be a constant. Anything else is not. :) -- one of the reasons for  
this is that we want to be able to pass through name/value pairs that  
a web application may be using to preserve state. We think the  
likelihood that any existing app have strings that start with "dix:/"  
to be, well, really really small.

One might think that we could just use "http://dixs.org" as the  
escape sequence, but we wanted anyone to be able to extend DIX, so  
having a new scheme allows the scheme to be the escape, and the  
namespace and hence the definition of properties that can be stored  
and retrieved to be distributed rather then centralized. We reserved  
the use of dix:/foo style constants (no name space) for ones that are  
defined in the DIX spec.

Does this make sense? Do you have a suggestion for another approach  
that provides an escape mechanism and allows decentralized property / 
capability extension?

-- Dick

Received on Monday, 20 March 2006 14:54:37 UTC