Musing over Namespaces

[james anderson]

There are two sides to "identity". One is "what the symbol 'means'". This
requirement is apparent in Mr. Park's initial musings and in follow-ups. An
additional, though somewhat neglected, requirement is that of "dynamic
uniqueness": that is, that two parties can guarantee the uniqueness of a name
without negotiation with others. Namespaces fulfill this second requirement as well.

While it is true that a "fixup cycle" is entailed by the present namespace
standard in order to reconcile names, this is an omission of the present
formulation and is not inherent in namespaces. 

David Megginson wrote:
> ...
> Personally, I'd rather see a world with
> 
>   {http://www.sun.com/ns/}purchase
>   {http://www.ibm.com/ns/}purchase
>   {http://www.amazon.com/ns/}purchase

while i appreciate the presence of

    {http://www.net/ns/<media-access-code>/<process-id>/}purchase
> 
> than a world with
> ...w


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