[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Best Practice for URI construction?

• To: Philippe Poulard <Philippe.Poulard@s...>
• Subject: Re: Best Practice for URI construction?
• From: ht@i... (Henry S. Thompson)
• Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:30:41 +0000
• Cc: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>, XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <4399A317.4040707@s...> (Philippe Poulard's messageof "Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:30:31 +0100")
• References: <B8415163A689094689542C617ECA036650F585@I...><4399A317.4040707@s...>
• User-agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) XEmacs/21.4.17 (Jumbo Shrimp, linux)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Both the W3C TAG's _Architecture of the World Wide Web_ [1] and the most
recent RFC for URIs themselves, RFC 3986 _Uniform Resource Identifier
(URI): Generic Syntax_ [2] use the following terminology consistently:

 1) URIs *identify* resources;

 2) "We do not limit the scope of what might be a resource. The term
    *resource* is used in a general sense for whatever might be
    identified by a URI."

 3) "It is conventional on the hypertext Web to describe Web pages,
    images, product catalogs, etc. as "resources".  The distinguishing
    characteristic of these resources is that all of their essential
    characteristics can be conveyed in a message. We identify this set
    as *information resources*".

So one can mint a URI which identifies Michael Kay, in which case he
is the resource that URI identifies.  However, since all his essential
characteristics evidently _cannot_ be conveyed in a message, i.e. are
not available for retrieval from that URI, Michael is not an
_information_ resource.

On the other hand the resource identified by the URI
http://users.breathe.com/mhkay/ _is_ an information resource (albeit
an out-of-date one).

ht

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/
[2] http://www.gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html
- -- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
                     Half-time member of W3C Team
    2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
            Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@i...
                   URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFDnW1xkjnJixAXWBoRAihEAJ9tc1kO5r90CHFQCpWfsb/pqG+ViQCfTT9N
OVD6AZAMzSafQevfgep8sGQ=
=WmBF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

• References:
  • Best Practice for URI construction?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • Re: Best Practice for URI construction?
    • From: Philippe Poulard <Philippe.Poulard@s...>

• Prev by Date: Re: Best Practice for URI construction?
• Next by Date: XML and email
• Previous by thread: Re: Best Practice for URI construction?
• Next by thread: RE: Best Practice for URI construction?
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread