Re: ERB call on addressing

>On Mar 27,  2:26pm, lee@sq.com wrote:
>> If you only download a fragment, the fragmenter can change links
>> in the document so that they point to the correct fragment.


>Yes, you can alpha rename everything.  This is _not_ a no brainer.

>> > So we want a syntax that says "give me piece X
>> > of document Y".
>>
>> You already have it.
>>
>> 	http://server/documentY/partX
>> might do this, if the server is so set up.  Jon Bosak has illustrated
>> the use of this syntax for us already, has a working server that does it,
>> and did not need anything special at the server end.

>Yes, this can obviously be done.  But the client has no way to know that
>http://server/documentY/, http://server/documentY/partX and
>http://server/documentY/partY have any relationship because it's only "might."

So, as an author, you hve to decide which way you want to provide your
data, and whether having two URLs for the same data is a problem or not.
It's not the renaming that's not "not a no-brainer" it's whether you want
to support two access techniques for the same document (parts).

>In most of the web they don't.  I don't think renaming is so easy once you
>start thinking through examples, i.e., suppose subZ of partX can be separately
>downloaded, and I get partY, which has a reference to
>http://server/documentY/partX/subZ (because after all, I could ask for just
>that), but then I request partX and a little later subZ.  With a little
>thought
>it's pretty likely they are the same, but there is no guarantee.  I now have
>two versions of subZ.  This is not good behavior.  I think it's worthwhile for
>the client to know both subZs are more than coincidentally the same.

This cannot be done, in general. All we can do is _enable_ people to make
nice views available. As far as I can tell, 20% of the important pages on a
corporate site have at least 3 URLs. This is a problem if you make
unwarranted assumptions about the URL->document mapping. The only warranted
assumption about the meaning of a URL in vacuo is _no_ assumption. If we
choose to encourage a particular form of query URL that is a suggestion --
it can't be something that clients can count on.

It is unnecessary to suggest a server format for URLs that access XML
document parts, but harmless. It is harmful, if it encourages clients to
try to parse URLs for meaning.

   -- David

>
>Matthew Fuchs
>matt@wdi.disney.com
>
>--


_________________________________________
David Durand              dgd@cs.bu.edu  \  david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Boston University Computer Science        \  Sr. Analyst
http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/   \  Dynamic Diagrams
--------------------------------------------\  http://dynamicDiagrams.com/
MAPA: mapping for the WWW                    \__________________________

Received on Thursday, 27 March 1997 15:32:40 UTC