On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 30 April 2010 16:42, Ed Summers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Just to clarify -- OpenURL 1.0 does not assume HTTP is being used.
>>
>> Oh, so that's the problem!
>
> Yes! Exactly!
>
> Poor old OpenURL 1.0 is abstracted to hell and back. The sad old
> thing doesn't even know what transport it's running on (why? Because
> Abstraction Is Good, not because anyone actually had any reason for
> wanting to use a different transport than HTTP), and as a result it
> can't assume it has, for example, the ability for the transport to
> report errors.
>
Of course, per Eric's earlier comment, there's no reason why we can't
take what's there and refine it so that there are assumptions like
HTTP and optimize it to actually *work* in such an environment.
Is there?
-Ross.
> It's a shame. I can see the reasons why the committee took it the way
> they did, but the whole exercise has ended up smelling of architecture
> astronautics. See this column if you're not familiar with the term,
> it's a good read:
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html
>
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