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RE: URIs harmful

• To: <jborden@a...>
• Subject: RE: URIs harmful
• From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>
• Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:20:13 -0700
• Cc: "Mark Baker" <distobj@a...>,"John Cowan" <jcowan@r...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Thread-index: AcI02Csq/8j/8ma9Sc2X+2NjUGH26AAAGDqA
• Thread-topic: URIs harmful

> > It's not a matter of restricting.  Most people will make reasonable
> > assumptions about the nature of a resource being identified based on
its
> > name (why would the name include a particular token, like "http:",
if
> > it doesn't serve to identify, anyway?)
> 
> This is dead wrong. Most people will make reasonable assumptions about
the
> nature of a resource being identified based on its _representations_.

You are describing the *web*, not the *semantic* web.  You can't talk
about something unless it has a name.  You *can*, however get a
representation of something without knowing what its name is.  The
discussion of *what* is actually being identified in an HTTP GET
situation is a red herring.  It doesn't matter, because you are not
*talking* about it, you are only *looking* at it.

It's the difference between being able to yell "fire", or having to hold
up a lit match.  As long as you make identity be tightly-bound to a
synchronous HTTP GET, then you don't have a semantic web, and you aren't
identifying resources except in your imagination.

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