RE: now://example.org/car (was lack of consensus on httpRange-14)

Larry's proposal is very interesting--recommended reading for sure.

Let me summarize the thread instead of replying separately to a dozen
weekend messages:

I am asking the TAG for an opinion on the relative merits of two (not
necessarily exclusive) worldviews:

a) URIs in general can identify anything. http:// URI(reference)s can
identify anything. Fragment identifiers are necessary (at least in RDF) to
broaden the scope of http:// URIs.

vs.

b) URIs in general can identify anything. http:// URIs can identify anything
that's network-accessible. thingy:// URIs (meaning something like ChrisL's
now:// or LarryM's tbd:// without getting hung up on the name) can identify
anything non-network-accessible.

The reason that the TAG should address b) in some manner is because
"thousands" of developers (including four or five so far in this thread)
have independently thunk up this technique throughout the Internet ages.

Another reason to examine b) is that a non-dereferencable URI can have a
fragment identifier that doesn't rely on the representation--which could be
a way for RDF to keep on doing what it's doing, with a good explanation for
why # has special significance!

The question is NOT whether a) or b) can hold together consistently, because
either could, given enough force. :-) The questions are: does a
non-dereferencable scheme model the non-networked resources better? Is it
more understandable and less error-prone for developers? Has it already been
looked at in detail and rejected?

Having the answers to such questions on record would be of immense value to
developers everywhere.

Sincerely,

.micah

-----Original Message-----
From: Graham Klyne [mailto:GK@NineByNine.org]
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 1:31 AM
To: Micah Dubinko
Cc: 'www-tag@w3.org'
Subject: Re: now://example.org/car (was lack of consensus on
httpRange-14)


If you want to follow that path, there's Larry Masinter's proposal for 
'tdb:' URIs:

   http://larry.masinter.net/duri.html

#g
--

At 03:20 PM 10/4/02 -0700, Micah Dubinko wrote:
> >From the TAG f2f minutes:
>
>[ChrisL]
>     now://example.org/car
>     Where 'now' is defined to be a
>     non-dereferencable protocol
>
>Other than this short statement, I couldn't find any other references in
the
>minutes about this idea.
>
>Graham Klyne separately suggested:
>
>  http://id.ninebynine.org/people/gk/ to identify a person
>and
>  http://www.ninebynine.org/Ident/people/gk/ to identity a web page.
>
>With a small twist, that could be:
>
>  now://www.ninebynine.org/Ident/people/gk/ to identify a person
>and
>  http://www.ninebynine.org/Ident/people/gk/ to identify a web page
>
>
> >From the viewpoint of a web developer, it makes sense to differentiate
>between network-accessible and non-network-accessible resources. A trivial
>transform ('now:' -> 'http:') can provide additional details on the
abstract
>thing-that-means-whatever-the-DNS-owner-defines-it-to-be.
>
>Thoughts from the TAG?
>
>.micah

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>

Received on Monday, 7 October 2002 18:07:58 UTC