RE: Disambiguation; keeping the "U" in "URI"

Mark Baker wrote,
> Re disambiguation, as I've said repeatedly (don't people believe me?
> 8-), HTTP has the Content-Location header for doing just this.

Right, this helps but, IMO, it doesn't solve the whole problem, and
it's only one mechanism amongst many.

One of the major problems is that it seems to require an HTTP 
retrieval, which might be inappropriate, and that the server be able 
to make the decision about the correct disambiguation, which might
not always be the case.

This seems particularly unfortunate in the car vs. document case. If
I want to make an assertion about a car I surely don't want to have
to attempt a retrieval on it's URI only to be told by the server to
refer to an associated document. The retrieval is innapropriate in
the first place, but, in the absence of a retrieval, where's the
Content-Location: header to do the work of disambiguation?

Mark, you've been so insistent that http://www.markbaker.ca/ 
designates you, that I think it's reasonable to believe that it's
passed into common use as one of your names, at least around here. 
Which means that someone might ask me to "Buy http://www.markbaker.ca/ 
a beer". Context and the nature of the beer-buying operation means
that I'm unlikely to do anything daft with a document in response to
such a request, but it's quite clear that neither HTTP nor Content-
Location: do any work the process.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Wednesday, 24 April 2002 10:19:24 UTC