--On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 11:39 +0100 Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On 23/10/2012 00:32, Mark Nottingham wrote: > ... >> The underlying point that people seem to be making is that >> there's legitimate need for URIs to be a separate concept >> from "strings that will become URIs." By collapsing them into >> one thing, you're doing those folks a disservice. Browser >> implementers may not care, but it's pretty obvious that lots >> of other people do. > > Thanks for bringing this point out. It was explained to me in > 1993 by TBL and Robert Cailliau that URLs (the only term used > then, I think) should never be typed in by a user, and > preferably never even seen by a user. It's because that > doctrine was abandoned a year or so later that we have this > problem today. I think there would be value in a document > making this clear, as a framework for clearly separating the > specification of what is allowable as a URI on the wire from > what is acceptable as a user input string (UIS?). > > UIS to URI conversion may well end up as a heuristic algorithm. Very useful perspective, IMO. Seen that way, IRIs might then be considered a different flavor of UIS. Less heuristic than some, but not a flavor of URI. best, john