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Re: many-to-many

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: many-to-many
• From: Miles Sabin <miles@m...>
• Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:59:45 +0000
• In-reply-to: <3E333A3A.6030900@t...>
• References: <r01050400-1023-E55A32F630AE11D78F1A0003937A08C2@[192.168.124.11]> <3E333A3A.6030900@t...>

Tim Bray wrote,
> Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> > "Cool URIs don't change" is a bad joke
>
> Really?  I can't agree.  The online publishers who are technically
> competent, as well as the emerging community of webloggers, really do
> have a culture of taking care of their URI space.  This is a Good
> Thing and should be encouraged.   -Tim

Really.

Are you really saying that before someone can publish something on the 
web they have to build a site ontology that's flexible enough to cope 
with all conceivable future eventualities? That's so counter to actual 
practice (and so inimical to "Joe Homepage") that I have a tough time 
understanding how anyone could seriously suggest it.

I agree that as a rough and ready principle it's a Good Thing to design 
a web system in a way which accomodates change without serious 
disruption. But this has much the same force as the old software design 
maxim "Design in the future tense". And it's equally defeasible: it has 
to be weighed against the costs of upfront over-design and the benefits 
of subsequent refactoring.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the only constant on the web is 
change. An "axiom" which states the opposite is just plain daft.

Cheers,


Miles

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: many-to-many
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>

• References:
  • Re: many-to-many
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Re: many-to-many
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>

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