To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: current status of URL document...
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 30 Jun 1994 22:23:33 PDT."
<94Jun30.222333pdt.2760@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 1994 19:03:13 -0700
From: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@simplon.ICS.UCI.EDU>
Message-Id: <9407011903.aa18295@paris.ics.uci.edu>
> I am increasingly convinced that reserving /?#; in ALL schemes would
> be a GOOD IDEA, with the meaning that / separates hierarchical
> components, ? separates the hierarchical components from a `search'
> element, # identifies a `fragment', and ; is a separator for
> `additional attributes', ...
I am definitely in favor of this. In fact, I would argue that the
URL spec in its current form does not define URLs -- there is no point
in defining a Uniform Resource Locator which contains no useful
uniformity in the syntax.
I would also like to second Dan's statement that no good technical
argument has been made for requiring the "URL:" prefix as part of the
URL syntax. Furthermore, the only "consensus" that was ever attained
on that subject was within the scope of an IETF meeting, and that cannot
be considered equivalent to consensus for the standard.
If such an argument cannot be made, then I suggest that the prefix should
be moved to the appendix and defined to be part of the text demarcation, e.g.
<URL: ... >
being the recommended standard for enclosing URLs in text/plain content.
....Roy Fielding ICS Grad Student, University of California, Irvine USA
(fielding@ics.uci.edu)
<A HREF="http://www.ics.uci.edu/dir/grad/Software/fielding">About Roy</A>