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

Dare Obasanjo wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jonathan@openhealth.org]
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 5:06 AM
> > To: Dare Obasanjo; Roy T. Fielding; Champion, Mike
> > Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> > >
> > > That's impressive. I meet people who are confused by HTTP
> > URLs used as
> > > identifiers on a weekly basis. Of course, working with XML
> > I am on the
> > > forefront of the grand experiment that is using HTTP URLs as
> > > identifiers.
> >
> > That's just because you work at Microsoft.
>
> Slur or genuine comment?

Genuine comment. I think this URI/URL pseudo-distinction isn't at all
important to the general public. I'm not sure what real consequences it has.
I don't think a real distinction can be made.

>
> > I think Roy is speaking for the 99% of people who _use_ the
> > web rather than those that write programs that manipulate web tokens.
>
> 99% of people who use the WWW use URLs not URIs.

No. These folks use the Web, they don't care what you call the thingie that
starts with "http://..." That's my point, perhaps we are thinking too hard
about this distinction. I have given some reasonable (I think) examples
where a URI/URL starting with "http" can be used in casual conversation to
mean different things, depending on the context. No surprise, that's how
words work, and how words have worked for a very long time, certainly
predating computers and the web. None of these issues seem at all new.

If I have any criticism of Microsoft, which applies equally to any
organization that has buildings full of engineers, or any organization that
has buildings full of any sort of people that tend to think the same way, is
that it is really easy to get stuck in a viewpoint that may not generalize
to the rest of the world. The web as I see it does not consist solely of
documents, but YMMMV.

Jonathan

Received on Wednesday, 9 October 2002 21:56:33 UTC