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Alaric Snell wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 12 February 2002 17:00, Paul Prescod wrote:
>
> > An RPC interface does not have this property. At best Google can return
> > a hyperlink to an end-point and human readable documentation about how
> > you could write a Python program to access the data behind that link.
>
> That depends what kind of RPC interface it is. RPC interfaces designed for
> distributed use, rather than in tightly defined systems, need not have that
> property.
Can you point me to an RPC interface where a robot can, without knowing
the methods, walk through the data and find other RPCs and, without
knowing any methods, walk through the data and find RPC and, ....
>...
> Even ONC RPC has standard things that can be done to any RPC endpoint: you
> can query them to see if they're up, find out what program is registered on
> that endpoint, then try to find documentation based upon that program number.
Wonderful. How do I get at the *data objects* hidden behind the RPC
protocol? The component end-point is the least interesting thing on the
entire system. It is only an interface to the data and processes but as
you describe it, it is an interface that is in the way.
> > The first is the set of all documents on the Web indexed by Google that
> > mention Len Bullard.
> > The next is the home page for a pop star.
> > The next is a movie about how the Python programming language brought a
> > young couple together.
> > The next is the middle of a transaction to buy airline tickets.
> >
> > How much more flexible do you expect URIs to be?
>
> What is the URI of me? http://www.alaric-snell.com/ is the URI of an HTML
> page about me, not *me*.
It is if you say it is and the rest of us agree.
> ... What is the URI of pain?
What do you want it to be? All we need is agreement.
> ... What is the URI of the
> planet? Of the entire Internet? Let me lower the bar: What is the URI of the
> number 5?
etc.
> We need more URI schemes that aren't resolvable :-)
Being non-resolvable is an orthogonal issue. Your home page is
resolvable and yet it will represent you if you you (for example)
register it with a service that keeps track of people.
> On the other hand, this is the URI of my mobile phone:
>
> urn:oid:1.2.826.0.1.4062548.2.0
>
> It does not support GET.
Yeah, too bad it doesn't support HTTP yet. But it will.
Paul Prescod
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