>
> Mark writes (at the end of his keynote thingy):
> >To construct a dictionary, we must be able to have a universal
> >name space for objects, both within an instance of a VRML
> >browser, but also, within the Web itself. It should not be necessary
> >to give the canonical telephone as a WWWInline with some
> >complex URL; rather, we should be able to say WWWInline
> >"telephone", and let the rest take care of itself. (This assumes that
> >the canonical telephone is being used.) There are proposals on the
> >table for a universal naming mechanism (the Universal Resource
> >Name) which spans the entire Web. Such a mechanism is an
> >essential part of this extension to VRML. If a likely URN
> >candidate does not exist by Midsummer, VRML designers will
> >either have to halt further development on scalable worlds, or will
> >have to use some other solution, such as ASN-1, to provide a
> >universal name space.
>
> Opinion: I'm not at all sure that, even when it's finished, URN's are
> going to be the *right* mechanism for this.
>
>
I agree that URNs will not describe "canonical" objects, i.e. classes. They
will be location independent references to particular, individual instances.
If you are looking for a "universal name space" to represent concepts, like
"telephone", that could resolve to different things depending on the referrer
or the time of reference, URNs are not it. (maybe natural language is?)
Whatever "universal name space" is used, we then need a mapping to URNs.
For example, Mark's dictionary might contain a "telephone" entry with an
associated URN that could be used to retrieve a particular (virtual)
telephone.
Stephen A. Mattin
Delphi Internet Services Corporation