Re: XBL Namespace uses the data: scheme

On Jul 19, 2006, at 17:18, Dan Connolly wrote:
> On Jun 30, 2006, at 5:59 AM, Robin Berjon wrote:
>> Correct, but mnemonic qualities of a string intended for human use  
>> can hardly be sufficiently stressed. As it currently stands, the  
>> only thing that beats the nsuri policy as example of what not to  
>> do here is UUID URNs.
>
> Hmm... I can think of a couple worse things:
>   - having namespace URIs go 404
>   - using the same namespace URI for two unrelated vocabularies
>
> The YYYY convention is mostly motivated by the latter concern,  
> though perhaps the fact that there's already a namespace document  
> that shows that a name is reserved is sufficient to address both  
> concerns, and not just the former.

Agreed. I also don't think that the likelihood of two WGs inside W3C  
requesting the same namespace within a few lifespans is extremely  
likely and can't be handled.

>> I'm being dead serious when I say that having totally random years  
>> in namespace URIs is the only thing I ever found genuinely  
>> difficult with namespaces. If there had been a mnemonic assignment  
>> system instead of a machine-oriented one I'm fairly certain that a  
>> fair percentage of the complaints about namespaces would have  
>> vanished.
>
> I wonder if you would be willing to serve as arbiter of the list of  
> yearless namespace names.
> How would you decide when to give one out?

I'm not sure that I'm not missing something about your question here.  
We already have a process for selecting shortnames in TR which seems  
to me to be working quite well, and the current nsuri policy requires  
the Director's approval for YYYY namespace names. Is there a problem  
in applying the same policy for /ns/* names?

> I still have my reservations, but I'm getting the impression that  
> this policy is going to change soonish.
> We're currently considering
> 	http://www.w3.org/ns/foo
> e.g.
> 	http://www.w3.org/ns/xbl
>
> If the random years issue is the main concern, I suppose that  
> should suffice.

It would certainly make me a happy hobbit. I don't care much about  
which variant is picked so long as it leads to mnemonic names.

> Issuing yearless URIs to replace existing namespace names also  
> seems like more trouble than it's worth, to me, but who knows...  
> the future is longer than the past, and if people are willing to do  
> all the hard work to work out a transition plan and get it reviewed  
> using normal W3C process (last call, CR, etc.), perhaps that's not  
> a bad thing.

Agreed, it should be left up to WGs to decide.

-- 
Robin Berjon
    Senior Research Scientist
    Expway, http://expway.com/

Received on Thursday, 20 July 2006 13:29:13 UTC