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Re: Best Practice for URI construction?

• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Best Practice for URI construction?
• From: Klaus Backert <Klaus.Backert@t-online.de>
• Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 20:17:31 +0100
• In-reply-to: <20051210095022.GA21952@bluezoo.org>

Hi,

RFC 1630 is from 1994. In "Universal Resource Identifiers -- Axioms  
of Web Architecture" Tim Berners-Lee wrote in 1996: "An object is 'on  
the web' if it has a URI" (as only one example of many). Going on  
with resource fun: The web is - again: as far as I know - part of the  
internet, and a resource is by definition something having a URI;  
ergo: simply by definition resources are always objects on the  
internet. If we use resources, we - by definition - confine ourselves  
to objects on the internet, and life is easy ;-)

There are examples of resources like this: "a document or image, a  
temporal service (e.g. 'today’s weather in Los Angeles'), a  
collection of other resources, a non-virtual object (e.g. a  
person), ..." by Roy Fielding in 2000. Some years ago on xml-dev  
someone gave as an example of a resource: a beach with e.g. pictures  
published as web-pages as representations of this resource. If I, the  
current mailinglist contributor, had an URI, I would be a resource  
and I would be "on the web" (it would be okay for me); e.g. my resume  
and a picture of me would be representations of me as a resource.  
This is _not_ meant as being uploaded to the web as in science fiction.

Guess, who said this: A resource is something like a Platonic idea.  
Well, I'm no follower of Plato.

There are a lot of ... ahem ... definitions and explanations in  
various publications by various authors and even by the W3C. If  
someone insists (and gives really good reasons;-), I can deliver a  
lot of evidence. But it wouldn't be worth the energy - so please  
don't insist ;-). I don't care about those definitions any more - and  
I can do my work very well.

Many of the resources in my work are non-electronic, e.g. persons,  
organisations, equipment. The resources got URIs. The resources (or,  
if you like: the representations of them) are accessible in a  
RESTafarian way. This makes life easy. It's my experience only, of  
course.

greetings
Klaus

Am 10.12.2005 um 17:21 schrieb Michael Kay:

>>
>> Doesn't that beg the question of whether these things are  
>> resources at
>> all, given that resources appear to be defined as "objects on the
>> Internet" by Tim B-L in RFC 1630?
>
> If we confined ourselves to objects on the internet, life would be  
> much
> easier. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be keen on using  
> URIs to
> identify objects in the real world.
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
>
>
>
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