"How to Compare URIs" update 3

I just uploaded http://www.textuality.com/tag/uri-comp-3.html with 
changes based on feedback here and in our telecon.  Below are some of 
the details of the update.

Roy has suggested that some or all of this text may find its home in the 
RFC2396bis, which is his current work-in-progress, which sounds sensible.

Stuart argues in 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jan/0019.html that we 
rush too quickly into "equivalence" without making it clear that 
equivalence is in respect of some purpose.  He's right and I've 
rewritten the introduction to say this; however I have not included 
Stuart's examples, as I think the specifics are well-populated with 
examples below.

He also agonizes at length about the %-escaping issue (as do other 
posters to www-tag), but I'm just not gonna rewrite this any more.  I 
think RFC2396 is first of all vague in that various reasonable people on 
www-tag disagree on what it says, and secondly wrong in the degree of 
latitude it offers in the char->octet mapping.  I think the current 
uri-comp draft is as reasonable an interpretation of what it says and 
what you might do about it as you're going to find anywhere.

Dan comments at length in 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jan/0132.html, and the 
TAG waded through some of them (in his absence, snicker) in 
http://www.w3.org/2003/01/20-tag-summary.  I'll skip his editorial comments.

His first comment is basically the same as Stuart's first.

He also challenges the assertion that it is never possible to be sure 
that two URIs identify "different" resources, with reference to a 
previous posting that I can't find, sorry, so I left that as is.

The TAG didn't agree with the commentary on the usage of the term "URI 
reference".

After some discussion, the TAG also decided that the /./ and /../ 
semantics really need to apply to absolute as well as relative URIs.

Finally, Paul Cotton in 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jan/0129.html argued 
that the recommended best practice in %-escaping would be to use 
uppercase A through F, and this has been adopted and explained.  -Tim

Received on Saturday, 1 February 2003 21:23:58 UTC