Re: lack of consensus on httpRange-14

Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> If # at the end of an identifier means something to a particular
> context, the spec for that context should make that clear, and not rely
> on an interpretation of URIs about which there is no consensus.

I think we all agree on that.  RFC2396 is clear that # has to be 
interpreted in terms of the type of the resource representation.  So 
far, all the popular formats I know of are pretty clear in their 
statements of what the '#' means: HTML, SVG, RDF, tons of 
<insert-application>ML's.

There is nothing defined for text/xml or application/xml (er I don't 
think) but the more I think about that the less I see it causing any 
practical problems.

Then there's the real operational problem that you have to be real 
careful about throwing #'s around because you don't know what they mean 
till you dereference the URI & find out what you get (I believe some 
discussion of this belongs in the arch doc).

> Sadly, the TAG doesn't appear to value the endless hours wasted in
> discussion about URIs in nearly every context outside of the URI core
> community where they are used that result from this deferred issue.

The specific issue here is "is there a rule as to what kinds of 
resources HTTP URIs identify?"  So far we can't find any.  As Roy points 
out, in point of fact there are lots of robots and cameras and so on out 
there on the web that are currently identified & controled via HTTP 
URIs.  If that weren't the case I'd probably be prepared to buy TimBL's 
proposition that HTTP URIs necessarily identify "documents".

As regards the larger-context discussion about URIs, I agree there is 
lots of uncertainty out there, and agree that anything the Webarch 
document can say would be real helpful. -Tim

Received on Thursday, 3 October 2002 13:57:20 UTC