# On hierarchy

hallam@alws.cern.ch
Fri, 15 Apr 1994 14:36:38 +0200

- Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
- Next message: Karen R. Sollins: "URN and citations"
- Previous message: Internet-Drafts@CNRI.Reston.VA.US: "I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-uri-urn2urc-00.txt"

    Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 14:36:38 +0200

    Message-Id: <9404151236.AA29051@dxmint.cern.ch>

    From: hallam@alws.cern.ch

    Subject: On hierarchy

I am really getting into the usefullness of hierarchies.

It seems to me that we have two conflicting interpretations of the protocol
field:

As a resource (eg news, mailto)
As a protocol (nntp, http, ftp)

If we get the levels right then a protocol is the implementation of a reource.

I was looking into ways of naming my mailfile, I have routines to hypertextize
the mailfile and allow remote viewing (all pupular systems, mh, elm, VMS). For
posting mail the syntax is easy:

mailto:fred@whatever

For reading on the other hand it gets sticky. I want to be able to refer to
messages by the folder(s) they are in. This has massive implications for
efficiency. The UNIX mail handling system is a disaster and unless you know the
folder a mail is in you come *very* unstuck. I have 10Mb of mail accumulated
over the years. I don't want to have to search through that lot just to read one
article. Indices help but they have to be maintained.

So it makes sense to read a file via a URL:

mail:hallam/folder/message@whatever

Now I would like to propose a unifying rule for URLs:

A resource created by a method PUT [url] should be accessible
by a method GET [url] and vice versa.

Extending this slightly to POSTing let us consider a significant problem with
this mailing list, everything appears in the same file as my main mail which is
a pain. I then have to sort it all out againl. What would be nice would be for
all the mail to automatically file itself in the right folder. How about:-

POST mail:hallam@alws.cern.ch/uri-list

Creates

From: whoever
X-Folder-Suggestion uri-list

Also it is useful to have a PUT method for mail where the message id is given.
This allows a program to POST a message to the internet and then send the same
message as a CC to a user - possibly at a later date, eg the mail is delayed in
a gateway.

I know that this will be useless unless people have a mailer that can split
intelligently. But given the complete hash that UNIX makes of mail storage and
distribution anyway this may have to be done anyway. Alternatively a patch to
elm would do the trick perhaps.

Phill Hallam-Baker

- Next message: Karen R. Sollins: "URN and citations"
- Previous message: Internet-Drafts@CNRI.Reston.VA.US: "I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-uri-urn2urc-00.txt"