Identity

[Ketil Z Malde]

"Hunter, David" <dhunter at mobility.com> writes:

>>> In another post on this thread, Lars Marius Garshol asked if the
>>> following two URLs denote the same resource:

[search engine example]

> But in this case the search engine isn't treating them as "the same
> thing";

I read this argument from the viewpoint that we were discussing the
objects referenced by URLs, and not the URLs themselves.  Were I
mistaken? 

The URLs are *obviously* not identical if they are not the same,
letter by letter (possibly except leading and trailing whitespace).

> But to the web server itself, i.e. a.server.com, there really would never be
> such a "thing" as "page.asp?param1=5&param2=6"; there would only be a
> "page.asp", and anything else is just a parameter to the one
> "thing".

You cannot know that from the outside, and it's just a pesky
implementation detail.  But you raise an interesting point, because
a cgi with the same parameters isn't guaranteed to return the same
result (e.g. page hit counters).  Are they still the same object?

Basically, I think this calls for a requirement that all CGIs and ASPs 
and what not be side-effect free.

-kzm
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

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