[tdwg-content] "resolution" of URIs usually used improperly

[Kevin Richards]

Yes, too pedantic Bob.  ;-)
But really useful to be pointed out.

However, I think it really depends on the context you are using the terms (as is often the case).
I was considering how I might reword any mention of resolution and dereferencing in my beginners guide to persistent identifiers in accordance with what you have pointed out, but I think changing "resolution" to "dereference" will just confuse people in a beginners guide (ie they are probably too novice to know the difference, or even care)

Kevin


-----Original Message-----
From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle
Sent: Friday, 15 October 2010 7:02 a.m.
To: 'Bob Morris'; tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] "resolution" of URIs usually used improperly


Thanks, Bob.  I was unaware of the difference until now.

Such is the bane of our community (homonyms, synonyms, and misapplied
terms).

I sigh in an analagous way everytime someone refers to a taxon name, when
they are really referring to a taxon concept.

Rich



> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Bob Morris
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:51 AM
> To: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
> Subject: [tdwg-content] "resolution" of URIs usually used improperly
>
> Is it too pedantic to wish that people would not use
> "resolve" when they mean "dereference"? The terms are
> distinguished in RFC 3986[1]:
>    "URI "resolution" is the process of
>    determining an access mechanism and the appropriate parameters
>    necessary to dereference a URI; this resolution may require several
>    iterations.  To use that access mechanism to perform an
> action on the
>    URI's resource is to "dereference" the URI." [1]
>
> I bet the concensus answer to my question is "Yes".  Sigh.
>
> [1]http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt
>
> Bob (The Pedant) Morris
>
> --
> Robert A. Morris
> Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science
> UMASS-Boston
> 100 Morrissey Blvd
> Boston, MA 02125-3390
> Associate, Harvard University Herbaria
> email: morris.bob at gmail.com
> web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
> web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
> http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
> phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)
> _______________________________________________
> tdwg-content mailing list
> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content


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