I keep telling myself I'm going to stop posting on this thread, but ...

Erik Hetzner writes:
 > Could somebody explain to me the way in which this identifier:
 > 
 > <http://suphoa5d.org/phae4ohg>
 > 
 > does not work *as an identifier*, absent any way of getting
 > information about the referent, in a way that:
 > 
 > <info:doi/10.10.1126/science.298.5598.1569>
 > 
 > does work?

We know that the syntax of URIs is <scheme>:<stuff>.  We know that for
info: URIs (i.e. when <scheme> is "info") the syntax of <stuff> is
<type>/<moreStuff>.  So parsing and handling the info: URI is really
easy to do in a clean way with separable pieces of code that have no
special cases.  All you need to know to make this work is that the
identifier is a URI -- the rest follows from established rules.  The
info: URI is more self-describing than the http: URI.  Even for a
human reading these, there is a big difference -- it's pretty much
impossible NOT to recognise what the info: URI identifies, whereas I
have absolutely no idea what the http: URI represents.

No-one disputes that it's _possible_ to use http: URLs as identifiers.
It's _possible_ to use compressed sawdust blocks as building materials
for houses, but people mostly don't do that, because we have better
options to hand which get the job done more efficiently and
appropriately.  Going back to someone's point about living in the real
world (sorry, I forget who), the Inconvenient Truth is that 90% of
programs and 99% of users, on seeing an http: URL, will try to treat
it as a link.  They don't know any better.  Heck, most of the time,
_we_ don't know any better, and it goes without saying that our
insight, experience, charm and rugged good looks make us the elite.
Let's make our identifiers look like identifiers.

(By the way, note that this is NOT what I was saying back at the start
of the thread.  This means that I have -- *gasp* -- changed my mind!
Is this a first on the Internet?  :-)

 _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <[log in to unmask]>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I've got a slug ..." -- _Parrot Sketch_, Monty Python's Flying
	 Circus.