Overloaded URIs (was Re: XLink: behavior must go!)

[Paul Prescod]

James Tauber wrote:
> 
> 1. Namespace URIs don't have to point to anything retrievable, they are just
> unique identifiers
> 2. Some URI schemes might not be web-retrievable (eg "isbn:1-23456-789-0")
> 3. Some URI schemes *are* web-retrievable (eg http://www.megginson.com/ns/)
> 4. So namespaces URIs *can* point to something, though, such as a
> human-readable description of the namespace, if they use a URI scheme that
> is web-retrievable.

It strikes me as clearly poor design to use an HTTP url for something not
retrievable by the HTTP protocol. I am distressed that this is becoming
"standard practice." How the heck are we supposed to know, on seeing a URI
whether it is supposed to be retrievable or not?

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Alabama's constitution is 100 years old, 300 pages long and has more than
600 amendments. Highlights include "Amendment 393: Amendment of Amendment
No.  351", "Validation of Laws Regulating Court Costs in Randolph County",
"Miscegenation laws", "Bingo Games in Russell County", "Suppression
of dueling".  - http://www.legislature.state.al.us/ALISHome.html

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