Re: [Uri-review] draft-farrell-decade-ni

[Eric Johnson <[e-mail]>]

Hi Graham,

On 5/7/12 10:38 PM, Graham Klyne wrote:
>> If "ni://example.com/index.html" is the obvious result of the relative
>> computation, but is in fact meaningless in the context of the 
>> definition of the
>> scheme, then I don't think that's harmless result. The expectation of a
>> hierarchical scheme seems to me that you can apply standard hierarchical
>> manipulations, and get a new valid URI, even if there's no "there" 
>> there at the
>> given endpoint.
>
> Oh, it's a perfectly valid URI according to the rules of RFC3986, just 
> not having a defined meaning according to the rules of the ni: 
> scheme.  I don't think it's the task of a specification, or even 
> possible, to catch and somehow prohibit every clueless operation that 
> might be attempted. 

Taking your point, perhaps at a minimum the proposal should document 
which hierarchical operations will yield a result with "a defined 
meaning according to the rules of the ni: scheme", and which ones won't. 
Especially so since the proposed scheme uses the "//" indicator which 
implies hierarchical operations, and we've already agreed that some such 
operations are meaningless.

Even simpler, though, would be to change the syntax to remove the 
indication of hierarchical syntax, since, as I understand it, *none* of 
the hierarchical operations possible will yield a useful result "having 
a defined meaning according to the rules of the ni: scheme." (Well, OK, 
some might have a defined result, but only in the sheer-dumb-luck sense 
that an infinite # of typing monkeys in an infinite time would 
eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.) But maybe I've 
misunderstood the proposal?

-Eric.