Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 09:42:59 -0600
Message-Id: <9312021542.AA03763@joe.uwex.edu>
To: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch, mitra@path.net (Mitra)
From: hoymand@joe.uwex.edu (Dirk Herr-Hoyman)
Subject: Re: Minor clarification on url: prefix
At 11:53 AM 12/2/93 +0100, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>
>___________
>Issue: Should the string "URL:" be considered a mandatory
>initial string of any URL.
>
>Arguments (abbreviated .. as far as I can remeember.. )
>
>For: It is useful to be able to know when one has a URL.
> Like in plain text.
>
>Against: This is messy when you know what it is already,
> like in a "URL" field.
> so don't include the tag as PART of the URL
>
>For: But we need to know it isn't a URL when there are URNs
> around
>
>Against: URNs will have a specific prefix anyway.
>
>Against: The URL/URN distinction is not so clear anyway
>
I believe I heard another point
For: Don't need to know EVERY URL access method.
Against: Clients like Mosaic will rip off the url: prefix
and look at the access method anyways.
The only area I see this being really useful is in plaintext, like e-mail
messages. But, I thought a <> wrapper had been proposed for this purpose
anyhow (is this still in?) Trying to find URIs in plaintext is going to be
an inexact science no matter what, since the syntax is already complicated
and it's REAL people typing these in.
If we were to have a <> wrapper, then doing <URL ftp://myhost/dir/file>
would be better, since it's SGML parsable. This follows what the example
Mitra gave earilier where he complained about the "messiness" of the url:
prefix.