Re: Simple solution? Pub. Idents. vs URN.

I take the body of the above discussion (enjoyable though it is) 
as strong evidence that for now, XML should stay with the two modes
of addressing that it has built in: URL and ID/IDREF.  Every discussion
of FPI's and UR[^L]'s that I have heard has quickly passed out of my
comprehension and into a desolate area full of ringing assertions about
document metaphysics and the eschatology of network addressing.  Which is 
all very entertaining but not, I submit, our job.  URL's and ID/IDREF, 
particularly when extended with some basic HyTime mechanisms, have an 
important virtue; they demonstrably work, and there is the software to 
prove it.

XML is not here to be a partisan of hypotheses about the way advanced 
document processing ought to be done in the future; its goal is to specify 
a simple set of practices that (a) are comprehensible (b) are
compliant with international standards and (c) work.

Cheers, Tim Bray
tbray@textuality.com http://www.textuality.com/ +1-604-488-1167

Received on Thursday, 28 November 1996 16:45:43 UTC