Re: http URIs as names and scalability

On Sat, Oct 12, 2002 at 05:13:57PM -0700, Larry Masinter wrote:
> It would be very bad if the web architecture REQUIRED
> or even ENCOURAGED implementors of widely used media
> types to actually go off and GET the namespace URI.
> So a web design that had browsers actually trying
> to connect to www.w3.org and "GET /1999/xhtml" whenever
> they tried to open an XHTML document ... well, that would
> be a bad design.

I agree.

I think that REST's stateless interaction constraint[1] suffices for
saying just this, as it requires that all information which is necessary
to understand a message, is part of the message itself.

IMO, I think there's a lot that the Architecture Document could, and
should, say about it, as I personally consider it the second most
valuable architectural constraint on the Web (behind the uniform
interface, of course).  For example, its role in contracts and digital
signatures, its contribution to reliability, etc..

 [1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5_1_3

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, CTO, Idokorro Mobile.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.
http://www.markbaker.ca             http://www.idokorro.com

Received on Sunday, 13 October 2002 07:45:01 UTC