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URIs harmful (was RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark)

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: URIs harmful (was RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark)
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:59:21 -0400
• In-reply-to: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E430752B6B5@HQ5>

Len Bullard wrote:
> If you believe that, then you haven't been paying 
> attention.  This issue is the black hole of WWW 
> architecture.

Hey, for once I get to agree with Len!

At this point, I start to doubt the value of specifications when they
use URIs rather than URLs.  The Identification/Location mess has been
swirling for years, despite the claims of those on the Identification
that everything's just dandy.

Namespaces are probably the worst place where this pollyanna attitude
has smacked XML, but their progeny, QNames, offer their own set of
problems.

URI usage is a serious red flag on specs for me, one of the first signs
I use to figure out where something is amiss.  The philosophy behind
URIs seems designed to ward off questions rather than promote
interoperability, which strikes me very strange for a technology
reportedly intended to be at the heart of Web infrastructure.

If the W3C wants to sort out Web architecture, a cold hard look at URIs
would be the first target I'd recommend.  That seems pretty unlikely
overall, since URI supporters generally refuse to acknowledge that
problems beyond misunderstandings exist at all.

God knows I'm tired of talking about this stuff, but it never seems
likely to be resolved.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: URIs harmful (was RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark)
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
  • Re: URIs harmful (was RE: Article: Keeping pacewith James Clark)
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
  • Re: URIs harmful (?!)
    • From: Mike Brown <mike@s...>

• References:
  • RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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