Re: URIs for the standard output and input streams

ah.

it seems that the uri list is growing into a major battleground for the 
"everything is http" and the "uri schemes are meaningful" crowds.

Noah Slater wrote:
> I disagree. URIs are opaque and "http://purl.org/std/in" is just an
> identifier for the concept of STDIN, which is it's self a
> non-information resource.
> The "http://" is not important, it's /just/ a name.

this is probably the core of the debate. for the "everything is http" 
folks, uris are just opaque strings that applications are matching, and 
if they happen to start with with "http:", you can also use them for 
getting http stuff, which is a useful side effect.

> Additionally, by using http:// we get to place a metadata profile at a
> network resolvable location so that clients who do attempt to
> derefference it will get a description of the resource.

this is where the "everything is http" world view catches up in 
semantics: treat uris as opaque, and leave semantics to descriptions. my 
personal opinion is that this is just another attempt to somehow find a 
place for rdf where it actually can be useful.

so after the geoloc uri discussion in the past weeks and the std uri 
discussion it seems to me that discussing the pros and cons of doing 
"everything as http" is not really worth the effort. both sides have 
their arguments.

repeating myself: i am still waiting for a single example from the 
"everything is http" followers where that approach was applied 
sucessfully. sure, it *could* be done, but it *has not been* done (at 
least as far as i know), and i am wondering why that is the case.

cheers,

dret.

Received on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 17:43:30 UTC