Re: URL-Reference / "empty URL" question

Edward Cherlin <cherlin@cauce.org> Thu, 15 May 1997 06:41 UTC

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Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 20:31:23 -0700
To: uri@bunyip.com
From: Edward Cherlin <cherlin@cauce.org>
Subject: Re: URL-Reference / "empty URL" question
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"Martin J. Duerst" <mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch> wrote:

>On Wed, 14 May 1997, Larry Masinter wrote:
>
>>   "the copy of the content that is being viewed now"
>>
>> Let's give it its own URL scheme
>>    "this:"
>> where the scheme-specific part of "this:" is
>> empty.
>
>Bright idea!
>
>I'm not sure, but I seem to detect in some of the comments
>in this thread a question as to why there could be a need
>to move inside a document without every refetching it (from
>the cache or wherever). But I think it goes without saying
>that something like this is needed, and if it didn't
>exist (currently as a special convention for URL references
>of the form "#blarg"), somebody would come along and
>invent it :-).
>
>Regards,	Martin.

I don't know about the this: scheme, but there is certainly a need for a
way to specify part of a document other than predefined #blargs. The
transclusion scheme in Ted Nelson's Xanadu project is a major example. The
idea is to support quoting from copyrighted materials by reference rather
than by copying. The project is working on ways to simulate the Xanadu
publishing model within HTML, and has suggested several ways to do
transclusions in HTML.

--
Edward Cherlin     Help outlaw Spam       Everything should be made
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