- From: Jonathan Borden <jonathan@openhealth.org>
- Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 12:29:43 -0400
- To: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>, <www-tag@w3.org>
Joshua Allen wrote: > > > This seems fine to me. But for God's sake let's make sure any > guidance > > > on this makes it very clear that this is a namespace *name*, and > > > although it may function as a stand-in for the namespace URI, it is > > > *not* the URI. > > > > I can find no distinction in any normative prose anywhere between > > "namespace name" and "namespace URI". -Tim > > Yeah, that's the problem. All of the existing docs play fast and loose > with the terms, and so you end up with people assuming that the > namespace name IS the uri OF THE namespace. Someone needs to fix the > docs, or at least in the TAG finding on using http: scheme in namespace > name, should explain to users that the http: URL is the uri OF A WEB > PAGE and NOT the uri OF A NAMESPACE. > What about this namespace name / namespace URI _reference_ : http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# does that URI reference identify a web page? I agree that we need to more clearly define and use terminology, for example the loose interchange between the terms "URI" and "URI reference" and "resource" ala RFC 2396 and "resource" ala RDF. On the other hand a namespace name really is a URI reference, well sorta, because namespace names are compared using literal string comparison, and URI references are compared using other algorithms (e.g. when relative URIs are involved etc.). In any case are you suggesting that URI references are other than names? I've always considered them simply as names for things on the Web -- and the definition of something on the Web is simply something that has a URI (reference). The fact that one can retrieve a piece of information which describes a name is a fundamental characteristic of the Web, perhaps _the_ fundamental characteristic of the Web, one that makes it interesting beyond the myriad of other ways to name things. After all, we have all sorts of other languages that name things in traditional ways -- yep, they don't "conflate" that name/location thing, but perhaps that is what has made the Web successful, and for better or worse, in the absense of this conflation we wouldn't have the Web, we would have something else. So after this long thread which is teetering "on topic", I consider this a fundamental feature of the Web that has a mandated place in an architecture document. Jonathan Jonathan
Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2002 12:35:17 UTC