Anthony Finkelstein wrote:
> The consensus response here is that DC.Identifier serves that
> purpose. But surely the identifier IDENTIFIES the resource it does
> not locate (aka link-to) it. Thus a sound metadata scheme
> distinguishes between the identifier and the locator or perhaps the
> link to the identifier and the link to the service which resolves the
> physical address.
In the case of HTTP, at least, there is no distinction between locator and
identifier: a resource is an object, which is identified by the location at
which one may access it (or, alternatively, is accessed at the location named by
its identifier).
More generally, it is my opinion that it is not possible to distinguish cleanly
between locators and identifiers, and that we have no need to do so. There
seems to be a desire for identifiers to be more persistent than locators (for
example, consider the distinction between an object ID and the address of the
object in memory); but, really, such identifiers are really just locators in a
more stable namespace.
--
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|John Stracke | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.|
|Chief Scientist |=============================================|
|eCal Corp. |Cogito ergo Spud. (I think, therefore I yam.)|
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