Re: New URI scheme talk in RSS-land

This is interesting question.

1.  There is a certain grace to the simplicity of a reference with no 
indication of what to do with something.
- Such a reference is much more reusable (you can bookmark it, email it 
etc);
- It corresponds to a "place" in the "navigation" of the hypertext, so 
human beings can use their inherent mental navigation metaphors;
- It respects that the user may want control of what to with the thing.

Yes, sometimes the author wants to suggest that a new window should be 
opened. We start to slip down a slippery accessibility slope and device 
independence cliff if not careful,  but it is useful to specify a 
target window for example.  Of course if you take this to extremes you 
end up with scripting languages, and questions of how to make the user 
aware of what he or she is actually doing.  You are wright that if you 
are going to specify a more complex behavior then it is logically part 
of the link.

Tim BL

On Dec 10, 2003, at 2:39, Graham wrote:

>
> Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>> It is *not* a good idea to confuse a reference to a resource with
>> instructions as to what to do with it.
>> ...
>> The fact that you might want to poll a living document to see how it
>> changes and the type of data in the document are really orthoganal, 
>> and
>> should be kept that way in the protocol and the UI.
>
> Then surely the problem here is the architecture of links themselves? 
> The problem being that they only serve as pointers to a resource, they 
> give no clue as to what to do with it. As you say, how to use a 
> resource is independent of its document format, and of its location. 
> In most cases, having a default action for a combination of type and 
> location has been more than adequate. But there is sometimes a need to 
> change the default action clicking a link produces - a example of this 
> already in use is links that specify they are to be opened in new 
> windows. This all sounds like something you might have discussed 
> before, though.
>
> Graham Parks

Received on Thursday, 11 December 2003 06:51:51 UTC