Re: Which URI should be persistent when redirects are used?

Pat Hayes scripsit:

> Suppose for example I am given the task of telling everyone that some 
> URI, say http://myexample.notarealone/Jazz-X , is intended by me to 
> denote Jazz. Well, I can say that, but what does it mean? What is 
> Jazz exactly? 

"Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know." --Louis Armstrong

> How do I explain what Jazz 
> is well enough so that others can use this URI in the way I intend?

You explain by explaining; there's no getting away from that.  If by
"glory" you mean "a nice knockdown argument", fine, but you have
to say so.

> Put the same point another way: how will anyone even know whether or 
> not URI-X is invariant? I might say that my URI-X denotes Jazz and 
> have one thing in mind, but if 99% of the people who use my URI in 
> fact use it with a somewhat different notion of Jazz in mind, then 
> that's what it will in fact denote when used on the Web, 
> independently of my intentions. So, did the denotation change? Was 
> the URI invariant?

It was as invariant as you could make it.

-- 
After fixing the Y2K bug in an application:     John Cowan
        WELCOME TO <censored>                   cowan@ccil.org
        DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

Received on Thursday, 27 September 2007 21:12:43 UTC