Re: How namespace names might be used

On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 03:29:13PM -0700, Tim Bray wrote:
> Namespace names either have URI syntax or are URIs.  Whichever is the case,
> how might we envision them being used in an ideal future?  
> 
> Level 1 idea: use the URI to retrieve the semantic resource.  I think this
> is more or less what TimBL and Dan are in favor of.  I'm on the record as
> thinking that this approach is pretty limiting, mostly because I believe
> that semantic resources come in lots of complex parts, including human-
> readable documentation, RDF, schemas, Java classes, and lots of other
> stuff that hasn't been invented yet.

But I think you are missing a rather fundamental aspect of what Tim, Dan
and myself are saying: the URI identifies the semantic resource not
a particular representation of it. Its not a question of the URI not
allowing you to get at those different semantic parts. That function
is left to the protocol that allows you to ask questions (methods)
about that URI. I.e. for the URI 'foo' give me the human readable
version, the RDF, the XML Schema, runnable code, etc. Those are all
representations of the same set of semantics that are identified by
teh URI.

> Level 2 idea: use the URI to start down a retrieval trail.  This is the
> idea, which I and others have talked up, of there being some sort of
> universal related-resource-clustering vocabulary - the word "packaging"
> has been used - if such a thing existed, and were conventionally placed
> where a namespace name points, this might be a real step forward for
> everyone.

What's the difference between this and #1? Other than the question
is asked of the data that comes back instead of the protocol that
has the data?

> But... the more I think about the packaging idea, the more it seems
> insufficiently flexible and general.  At the end of the day, it seems
> like all the different kinds of related resources (stylesheets, type
> definitions, procedural code, schemas) ought to somehow become active,
> and respond to call-by-name.  I.e. there ought to be a way to broadcast
> an appeal for stylesheets that can handle vocabularies named by 
> http://a.b.com/ns37, or Java classes that can generate audio output
> from vocabularies named http://a.b.com/ns39; this is a many-to-many
> mapping we're talking about here, because a stylesheet resource could
> probably "know about" a wide variety of vocabularies (e.g., DocBook
> derivatives) that it's capable of handling.  

Why can't content negotiation handle this? The CONNEG working group
is looking at being able to express just such relationships...

> Are any of the existing Internet protocols a candidate for this 
> kind of lookup-by-name?  I don't think content-negotiation goes nearly
> far enough.  Pardon me for blue-skying it.  -Tim

Are you thinking of content-negotiation in HTTP 1.0 or just the
general concept? And what is the exact different between lookup-by-name
and using a protocol to ask questions about a given URI?

-MM

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Michael Mealling	|      Vote Libertarian!       | www.rwhois.net/michael
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Received on Saturday, 10 June 2000 21:06:47 UTC