RE: httpRange proposed text

> >>> "If two people independently use the same URI as an identifier,
they
> >>> should be able to have a reasonable degree of confidence that they
are
> >>> identifying the same resource.  
> >>>
> >>> People should not be required to parse, dereference, or otherwise
> >>> acquire any *additional* disambiguating information to provide
this
> >>> basic guarantee. 
> >>>
> >>> Resource naming practices should be considered carefully, and 
> >>> people are strongly discouraged from naming resources in a manner 
> >>> that unnecessarily weakens this guarantee."
> 
> >> The intent seems good, but how on earth do you build this
confidence?
> >> By relying on the human-language semantics of the opaque part of
the
> 
> > Absolutely not.  Joshua didn't mean that you knew what each URI
meant by
> > just looking at it -- he meant (I think/hope!) that you know from
the
> > architecture that the two occurrences of the URI will identify the
same
> > thing, whatever that is.  There is no ambiguity built into the
> > architecture itself.  This is a core principle fo the Web which we
seem
> > to be in danger of forgetting.
> 
> Indeed, I mis-parsed Joshua's point, but I come back with the same
> question:  How do you get this kind of confidence?  Joshua suggests
that
> the answer has to do with how you go about naming resources.  I don't
> get it; further explanation please?

It is tautological.  URIs exist to unambiguously identify things.

The proposed text offers no advice about *how* to guarantee the
unambiguous identification characteristics of a URI.  It simply affirms
that this is the *purpose* of URIs, and recommends that people choose
URIs which do not conflict with that purpose.

Received on Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:09:01 UTC