[occi-wg] Syntax for attributes on links

[Tim Bray]

On May 7, 2009, at 3:45 PM, Sam Johnston wrote:

> We were talking before about all URLs appearing in the protocol, which
> does make a lot of sense. UUIDs are universally unique already are
> resolveable if not retrievable from the entry point that served them,
> and don't break when moved or shared. There are pros and cons of both
> approaches bit I think we need to understand the full implications
> before we decide one way or the other.

[Trying not to get hauled into the thick of OCCI design...]

Actually, if you have a protocol and there's a place where you're  
going to identify things with URIs (which is a good thing), the best  
practice is not to constrain the URI scheme.  Just say it's a URI.   
There are people who are going to want to use URNs or "tag:" URIs or  
whatever, for reasons that seem good to them.  I almost always  
disagree with those people and think that in general HTTP URIs are the  
way to go for almost everything, but if the usability of the protocol  
depends on the choice of URI scheme, that's usually a symptom of a  
problem.  -Tim