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Re: Re: URIs, concrete (was Re: Un-ask the qu estion

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Re: URIs, concrete (was Re: Un-ask the qu estion)
• From: Mike Brown <mike@s...>
• Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 18:54:06 -0600 (MDT)
• In-reply-to: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E430752B756@HQ5> "from Bullard, ClaudeL (Len) at Aug 2, 2002 04:41:38 pm"

Tim Bray wrote:
> I think if I ever decided to edit this thing again, I would include  
> something along the lines of Amy's language, that namespace names are
> strings which follow the syntactic rules for URI references, and that
> making them dereferencable may be a good and useful practice but MUST
> not be necessary for the base use case of disambiguation. -Tim

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> I like that.

Remember when I said

> I can see how using a URI for its syntax and not its semantics
> undermines interoperability. But I don't see how URLs fix that.

and Simon, championing URLs for namespace identifiers over URIs, replied

> URLs don't fix much except that you can get an answer of some kind.
> Whether that answer helps you or not is a different question.  The
> notion of URIs takes away the "give me an answer" and leaves us with a
> pile of characters and few rules for determining even as simple a thing
> as "are these the same identifier?", never mind "do these identify the
> same resource?".

...? If you recall, your contribution was a rhyme about a dead/alive cat,
so it's difficult to ascertain what your position actually was, but
I thought we were at least in agreement on the idea that it was
harmful to use a URI for its syntax and not its semantics. But now you
don't seem to mind.

Right now, a namespace identifier is
   - a string,
   - a URI,
   - treated as just as string, not a URI.

while Tim & Amy's suggestion is to say a namespace identifier is
   - a string,
   - indistinguishable from a URI, but it *is not* a URI,
   - treated as just a string, not a URI, since it is not a URI.

So I must ask, how is that you now believe that it is OK for a namespace
identifier to look like a URL, but not be dereferencable? How is this
not in violation of the principle of least surprise? You seem to now be
at odds with your earlier position, as well as with Simon's position.

Lastly, I shudder to think what wordplay of this sort would do to RDF,
where I do in fact want to identify resources.

   - Mike
____________________________________________________________________________
  mike j. brown                   |  xml/xslt: http://skew.org/xml/
  denver/boulder, colorado, usa   |  resume: http://skew.org/~mike/resume/

• References:
  • RE: Re: URIs, concrete (was Re: Un-ask the question)
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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