Just require URLs

Jonathan Borden jborden at mediaone.net
Wed Jun 2 18:56:51 BST 1999


Didier PH Martin wrote:

>
><point of view>
>a) because a URI could be used to specify a XML name space, we can use
>either URLs and URNs because both are URIs.
>b) If we have some forward thinking on the subject, someday, this URI will
>points to a "place" containing the name space documentation. The ideal
world
>is that the documentation contains both human readable and machine
>interpretable documents.

    I agree that this would be a benefit of overloading the namespace URI.

>c) If we choose to use a URL for a name space identifier, we create
location
>dependency to our documents, If we choose URNs, the documents are then
>location independent.

    I have a quibble with this terminology. URLs need not be location
dependent. This is a function of the URL scheme or namespace. For example
suppose we invent a new location independent protocol (LIP):

    "lip:W3C/Specifications/XSLT/Version1.0"

or:

    "FPI: ...."

This would be a location independent URL. The idea remains that URLs are
URIs used to "locate" resources. If you overload the "urn" scheme with a
network protocol, it really becomes a URL regardless of its definition in
2141.

>
>Conclusion:
>URN brings more longevity to information elements contained in the
published
>document. The URN can be resolved as long as a resolver has been created to
>resolve its particular name space (URN name space). In the case of URLs any
>documentation movement leads to a break of the links and the document is no
>longer linked to its documentation. Thus, in this case, the document has a
>shorter longevity (because we cannot retreive the document vocabulary rules
>and meanings).
>

    Really what you are suggesting is a location independent URL. I agree
this is a good idea.

Jonathan Borden
http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net



xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa at ic.ac.uk)





More information about the Xml-dev mailing list