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Re: Poll: What should a namespace name be?

• To: jc2astro@h...
• Subject: Re: Poll: What should a namespace name be?
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 09:03:24 -0600
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: Message from "Jimmy Cerra" <jc2astro@h...> of "Sun, 28 Jul 2002 19:17:44 EDT." <000b01c2368c$faa84bd0$0100a8c0@locutus>
• Sender: uche.ogbuji@f...

> Poll: What should a namespace name be?
> Here's the URL:
> 
> http://shouldnamespaceshaveuris.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/polls/001/poll_center.
> htm

I didn't take this poll because it is not clear.  I think a URI should be 
syntactically a URI but semantically "only a string" (that "only makes me 
chuckle  ;-)  ").

As for the URI's being a tautology, no news to me there.  It's also a direct 
contradiction.  I'm amazed at how disturbing this idea is to people here.  
Where have they been for the last N years, where N = their present age  :-)

Amelia, Jim and Didier have this weekend tried cute and clever ways to 
seemingly explain things that need no explanation.  I think all those arguing 
for the loose use of URIs understand all these arguments and issues well 
enough in plain speech.  The main problem is that we disagree, not that we 
don't understand.  I like RDDL because it gives people a way to put something 
at the end of a URI interpreted from a namespace name, which I think is, of 
course, a very good practice given many technical[1] people's expectations of 
HTTP URLs.  But URIs (including URLs) still mean what the publisher and the 
reader decide they mean, whether or not they are furthering their own 
interests by their decision.

[1] Many people, esp. Joshua Allen, seem to talk about conventions of URLs as 
if they include the vast body of Internet users.  I think this is a fallacy.  
Most non-technical folks don't know of or care of URLs.  They don't type into 
their browsers anything starting with "http://".  They also don't end with 
strings containing "/".  They either type in "www.company-i-want-to-buy-from.co
m", or they go to Yahoo and search, clicking based on the title.  Or they 
click on links from Web pages retrieved by either action, based on the text of 
the link, not its href.  In each case they are not using locators.  They are 
using *names*.  And remember, folks, that all names are descriptions, and 
vice-versa, even though some cultures have drifted some way from this fact in 
directness.  The supernatural power of names is the one bit of the paranormal 
I most firmly believe in.  This includes the power to promulgate perma-threads.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 - 
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
ry/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF - 
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A
1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC

• References:
  • Poll: What should a namespace name be?
    • From: "Jimmy Cerra" <jc2astro@h...>

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