Re: What Name Should A Namespace Name?

Sean B. Palmer <sean@mysterylights.com> wrote:

>> The answers to what's the resource at a namespace URI
>> (a namespace) and what's the resource at data: URI (the
>> content of the URI) seem to be mutually exclusive.
> Using data: URIs for namespaces (which return data) seems no
> better/worse to me than using HTTP URIs, which are also designed to
> return data.

I think the difference is that with HTTP, the spec makes it clear that you
request a _resource_ from the server and the server attempts to send back
the best representation it can. So if you request a namespace, you'll get
back a description of a namespace.

However, with the data: URI the only resource (AFAICT) involved is the data
itself. Thus, it can never be a namespace, since it will always be a chunk
of text (or an image, or whatever). (Unless we come up with a MIME type for
namespaces.)

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]

Received on Friday, 13 April 2001 12:15:02 UTC