RE: 2.3 URI Ambiguity

There is:  Don't Do This.  

On one hand, there are those who want to treat 
URIs like they are primary keys in a relational 
db where the application enforces integrity. 
The web architecture doesn't do that because 
it abhors central registries.   Worse, the 
thing identified, the resource, is an abstraction. 
So what we have is a best practice and if one 
wants to practice what Dan referred to as 
'anarchic scaling', that is as good as it gets.

The nit is the Semantic Web and the use of 
URIs in RDF.  That architecture has to take 
care of itself because the web arch has nothing 
to offer for enforcing unique identifiers.

len


From: Walden Mathews [mailto:waldenm@optonline.net]

: The confusion:  one doesn't know what a resource is, 
: so ambiguity creeps in right there, typically confusion 
: of representation and resource.
: 
You make a good point.  It has less to do with confusion
between representation and resource, though, and more
to do with the essential inscrutibility of resources.

Why be so precise about something that can't be
nailed down anyhow?  It seems like using a micrometer
to measure a ditch.

But I think somewhere there is a valid Best Practice
lurking, and we're off the subject now.

Received on Wednesday, 3 December 2003 09:43:12 UTC