# Re: going too far? (longish diatribe)

Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com)
Tue, 29 Nov 1994 11:23:19 -0500

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    Message-Id: <9411291623.AA28544@expresso.bunyip.com>

    From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>

    Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 11:23:19 -0500

    In-Reply-To: Terry Allen's message as of Nov 28, 14:47

    To: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>, "Karen R. Sollins" <sollins@lcs.mit.edu>,

    Subject: Re: going too far?  (longish diatribe)

[ You wrote: ]

} >We should *NEVER* be putting URLs into documents.
}
} If the URL is to a document that expires within a year, and we
} think the site where it resides will keep it right where it is
} for the foreseeable future, why not? . . .

Well, one reason touches upon a user inteface issue. If we
publish both URLs and URNs we would then have two sets of
semantics and at least in the short term the users would
have to be able to recognize both. We like to think we
know how to distinguish the two algorithmically, and thus
our tools could handle this for us, but we're certainly
not there yet.

Another reason is an engineering one. Even if we _think_
something will be around for only a year, it seems like
poor engineering to build in such assumptions, since the
Internet is so inherently flakely and the written word is
so darned persistent ( I _still_ get email to my old McGill
address citing a paper I wrote describing archie when it
first came out around about 1990).

} . . However, we should also
} provide non-URL references to those documents pointed to by URLs.

I think Karen's point was that we should not encourage
poor practice, even if we must tolerate it for now. If we
can get the URN architecture in place, then it is in
everyone's interest to do so ASAP. If we build it right,
the URLs then become redundent and should be omitted. I'm
the first to admit we shouldn't omit URLs yet, but I agree
with the idea that we should move away from them, and as
soon as possible.

- peterd

    --

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