To: hudson@cs.umass.edu
Subject: Re: URLs and Z39.50
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 28 Nov 1994 14:07:28 EST."
<9411281907.AA00654@yough.ucs.umass.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 23:31:27 -0800
From: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU>
Message-Id: <9411282331.aa27182@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Richard L. Hudson writes:
> The other option is to load up the URL with sufficient environment information
> to recreate the server z39.50 environment. Similar things are being done today
> to simulate browsing around relational databases.
In my opinion, this is not an option. A URL is a resource locator, not
a protocol. Any information beyond that necessary to identify the location
and access scheme for the resource should not appear in the URL. Instead,
such information should be determined dynamically by the client state,
client and server configuration, and whatever negotiation is supported
by the protocol.
......Roy Fielding ICS Grad Student, University of California, Irvine USA
<fielding@ics.uci.edu>
<URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/dir/grad/Software/fielding>