Re: New URM paper with additions!

Michael Mealling (ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu)
Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:51:28 EDT

From: ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu (Michael Mealling)
Message-Id: <199310212051.AA11106@oit.oit.gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: New URM paper with additions!
To: mitra@path.net (Mitra)
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:51:28 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9310211026.aa25721@pandora.sf.ca.us>; from "Mitra" at Oct 21, 93 10:26 am

Mitra said this:
> Three points.
>
> URL in Meta information: You have concerns that this could break
> things. I think the concept of a URL in the Meta information is broken.
> Defining URL: as a a IAFA tag is one thing, but it doesnt convey
> semantics. The URM definition adds semantics to this. URL's cannot occur
> INSIDE URMs in your definition as they have no meaning there.

Modify that by saying that I have concerns about some meta-information
containing the 4 characters 'UR*:' that could happen to appear at the
beginning of a line. For example:

URM:IAFA:en_US.iso88591
Author: John Doe
Title: "My Book"
Format: application/postscript
Abstract: This is a book on
URM: type things where I think I just broke this URT becausee
my title has URM: in it.
URN:
URM:

Where does that URM end in that URT?

> SGML as an encoding type. If some people want to use SGML for encoding
> types, then thats eminently reasonable, but to my mind that is an
> alternative encapsulation of the same information. So for a URM you get something
> like
> <urm>iafa:en_US.isio88591
> <author>Michael Mealing</author>
> <title>My book</title>
> </urm>
>
> As opposed to trying to encode SGML within your format. Since the
> information content of the two is identical, translating between an IAFA
> context (e.g. a Mime header) and a SGML context (e.g. a Web document) is
> trivial. I'm not an SGML expert, so I'm sure those on this list can
> comment on whether this is appropriate.

Then that breaks the useability of URTs. I would put forth that

URM:SGML:en)US.iso8859::"<author>Michael Mealling</author>"::....

gives you the same thing but doesn't break the model used by a URT.

> Re High Skool; If we want back compatibility with US high-school term
> paper format, then I propose that be an added applicability statement on
> the kinds of meta information that should be carried in a citation.
> (Note citation as opposed to URC).

I think I was misunderstood on that one. I just keep wondering if
citation is being used by differnt people to mean differnt things.
I think I hear some folx using citation to mean an encoding scheme used
to contain URIs plus meta-info (i.e.: URT) and some folx using citations
to actually cite something electronically. I think those are two different
functions best served by two different things.

-MM

P.S. I still like the idea of Uniform Resource Name Aliases. Just stick
'em in a file with a URN and it is resolvable and permanent but alternate
name for a resource. Just a comment though. Didn't mean to muddy the
waters though.

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