[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Handle-info] Re: indirect handles actually implemented?



Hi Tony,

Thanks for sharing your ideas on the type registry. Sounds like you have lots of goodies planned.

One question must be: When? Can you give us any idea on the likely timeframe
when we might see some of these pieces being introduced?
I am currently working on it. We are planning to have it publicly accessible by the Brussels meeting in June.
For example, I note that in the 0.TYPE/URL record you have added the XML
description fairly recently (see below).

Btw, I must confess to not having understood your last comment about my
question on needing to qualify URL types:
I agree with you that what URL type "means" is at best confusing at worst misleading. It should
never have been but it is a legacy type that will be grandfathered in as a "unwise, but useful
and pervasive type". It is too late to "fix" the URL type but we can hope that future types will be more succinct.


The type registry, along with its various services, will make recommendations for creating new handle
value types (by more or less enforcing the handle value type description schema) that will encourage
new handle value types that reference a resource to be appropriately specific to the type of that resource.


One can imagine a handle value type that is uniquely specific to a specific web service access point
defined by nature of the reference, the transport protocol and the service interface. In that case, the handle value type can be used for all web services that implement a specific interface.
e.g 10320/GoogleWebSearchAPI


Clearly, not all handle value type references will need to be so specific. For example, the 10320/OpenURL
handle value type (defines an OpenURL handle value) is a "smart" reference that intrinsically defines attributes
of the resource/service that it references. In this case, the handle value type delegates to the 10320/OpenURL
type handler the task of figuring out what the resource points to.



Agreed and the handle value type description, in the case of value by
reference, separates the reference from the
value type.

As an illustration the hdl:0.TYPE/URL?index=2 value suffers exactly this
problem. So the value is a URL, so what? What does that "mean"? That is,
what's at the end of the reference?
The 0.TYPE/URL?index=2 is there at the moment only because that is one of the types that the proxy knows how
to process and we wanted a simple way to associate the URL XML type description with its handle while rendering it at the same time. When the registry is up, this record might be taken out altogether.


Thanks,

-Christophe


_______________________________________________
Handle-Info mailing list
Handle-Info@cnri.reston.va.us
http://www.handle.net/mailman/listinfo/handle-info