Re: URI: Name or Network Location?

Hi Patrick,

Patrick Stickler writes: 
 > 
 > Per your view, most URIs do not denote web pages, images,
 > video streams, services, etc. but all denote "locations" and
 > if we ever want to describe all those web-accessible resources,
 > we need an entirely different set of URIs for them if we wish
 > to talk about them.
 > 

But surely the only reason this argument has weight is because there
is usually only 1 way of retrieving that web resource* - i.e. HTTP. 
Thus it becomes an attractive choice for naming it.

If the web hadn't turned out the way it has, and there were lots of
protocols vying on equal footing for supremacy, then the 'it's a name'
argument wouldn't seem so obvious. We would, as you say, probably have
a way of talking about the web resource itself, and a seperate way of
talking about the numerous ways of locating it.

The problem now is that we are attempting to use HTTP URIs to describe
abstract concepts and physical objects, and so the 'it's a name'
argument for HTTP URIs is suddenly non-obvious again. It seems to me
that the most obvious way of addressing this is to use a URI to denote
the thing (i.e. a name) and a seperate way of talking about the
numerous ways of locating information about it.

Cheers,

Phil

* or the representation of that resource

Received on Thursday, 22 January 2004 10:22:52 UTC