ModSAX feature naming (was: SAX: ModSAX addition, general ...)

[David Megginson]

[originally sent privately to Tony]

Toby Speight writes:

 > If you are saying that the use of URLs as names is just a stopgap
 > until the URN registration stuff is sorted, then I'll accept that,
 > but be aware of the precedent you're setting with the initial
 > "well-known" feature names.

The quality of URNs will depend entirely on the quality of the
registration schemes -- URNs really have no inherent advantage over
URLs.

There are an awful lot of ways that I could construct a unique ID:
using my phone number, my latitude and longitude, my Ethernet card's
MAC address, the IP address served by Rogers Wave's DHCP server, my
driver's license number, my Canadian Social Insurance Number, the ISBN
for my book (though I think the publisher would have a moral claim to
that), a domain name, or a specific URL.  The problem is that you have
to balance four factors:

1. ease of access (not everyone can get an ISBN easily);
2. usability (who wants to memorise MAC addresses?);
3. universality (my Canadian SIN is meaningless outside the country);
   and
4. persistence (the DHCP server might change my IP address in a few
   hours when my current lease expires).

HTTP URLs win pretty close to a 10/10 on (1) and (3), about an 8/10 on
(2), and probably a 6/10 or so on (4).  A UUID might win on all but
(2), depending on how hard it is to obtain one, but that is an
inherent property of UUIDs, not of URNs -- and as I understand it,
people are actually proposing constructing URNs from domain names
among other schemes anyway.

Even if UUIDs do turn out to be the best choice, what's the advantage
of URNs?  Why not just

  uuid:123344567773634


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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