Re: fb: URIs?

hello noah.

> I am somewhat doubtful of the notion of being "local and 
> context-specific".  If they really are, then why is it important that they 
> be URIs at all?  Why not make up some other handle name like "iPhone 
> launch key" that would represent a completely disjoint identification 
> space?

in theory, you're correct. in practice, i would suspect that inventing a 
special mechanism such as an "iphone launch key" is just more 
inconvenient and less likely to work across different products. i guess 
we can be pretty sure that the "local URI creep" we're seeing is mostly 
caused by convenience and/or by not understanding the possible 
consequences that you pointed out in your original message, and not by 
malice. if developers still want to get the convenience of the dispatch 
mechanisms that their toolkits give them for URIs, then maybe it would 
be more promising to try to create a mechanism or guidance how that 
could/should be done. i think using tag:facebook.com,2010:... may be a 
good way to go, but it seems that the tag URI scheme is not very widely 
known or used (and it has some weird constraints built into it).

cheers,

erik wilde   tel:+1-510-6432253 - fax:+1-510-6425814
        dret@berkeley.edu  -  http://dret.net/netdret
        UC Berkeley - School of Information (ISchool)

Received on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 03:49:56 UTC