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Subject: RE: [xri] w3c followup
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Mary, It is a very deep question, actually. Let
me go into a little more detail to spell out the different ways in which this
can work. =les/(+phone) is actually a classic
example of an abstract structured identifier because a) it’s a pointer to
Les’ phone number and not the phone number itself (abtract), and b) it tells
both people and machines that the type of concrete identifier it points to is a
personal phone number (structured). Being pointers, abstract structured
identifiers need to be resolved into concrete identifiers (like a phone number)
before you can use the concrete identifier. As you point out, if resolution of =les/(+phone)
requires a Internet connection but all you had access to was the phone network,
you’d be stuck, whereas with a “real” phone number you could
at least phone Les. There’s a perfect analogy to this:
if you have an Internet connection but your DNS server is down, you can’t
get to the websites you want to visit not because you can’t connect to
them (you could if you had their IP address and typed in in manually), but
because you temporarily can’t resolve their DNS name. In general are three general solutions to
this: 1) First, if the service you’re
trying to reach is on the same network, then if resolution is down, the service
is down, so it really doesn’t matter. That’s what Les was saying
about his =les/(+phone) number – it happens to be a network-based phone
service, so the vast majority of the time, if you’re not able to resolve
the XRI, you couldn’t use the service anyway. 2) Second is caching. The same way you can
use your browser on a plane to review websites you loaded up before you took
off, you could get anything you needed from your local cache as long as you’d
resolved it once and it hasn’t expired. 3) Third is “smart sync”,
meaning that you don’t just resolve and cache =les/(+phone), but you add
it to your “XRI address book”. Now you have a local client that can
not only resolve =les/(+phone) for you anytime (it’s just like looking up
a contact in Outlook), but through the magic of an XRI-enabled data synchronization
protocol (I’ll give you a hint, it’s 3 letters and starts with an X
;-), your XRI address book can keep it up-to-date for you. Now you never have
to worry about what “real” phone number =les/(+phone) resolves to
because that value will become about as important as knowing the IP address
that a DNS name resolves to. Hope this helps. Of course in our OASIS webinar
materials we won’t have enough time to get into this depth, but hopefully
there is a way we can get across how much power and convenience abstract
structured identifiers can unlock. =Drummond From: Mary McRae
[mailto:marypmcrae@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Mary
McRae Oh! Okay. This is
all really good to know as we come up for the OASIS Standard vote. And the idea
for the webinar sounds great. Keep up the great work! Mary From: Chasen, Les
[mailto:les.chasen@neustar.biz] No problem .. I like being picked on
… =Drummond does that all the time J XRI’s can be resolved locally
provided the XRDS is also available locally. We worked a little with
folks on the Higgins project to do just that. For my particular service
you do have to be connected to the NET in order to reach out to the concrete
network endpoint that hosts my phone number. In my, =les/(+phone)
case my phone service is actually provided by jaxtr.com. From: Mary McRae
[mailto:marypmcrae@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Mary
McRae Sorry for picking on
you, Les. I meant something even more basic – what if I’m not
connected to the internet – how do I resolve the XRIs to find out your
phone number? m From: Chasen, Les
[mailto:les.chasen@neustar.biz] I am not sure I understand the
question. Are you looking for my email address or were you trying one of
my XRIs in my signature block? From: Mary McRae
[mailto:marypmcrae@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Mary
McRae Hi folks, Silly
question, I know. And my apologies for picking on Les. As a casual observer, if
I’m sitting on a plane, or my internet connection is down, how do I know
who this message is from? And how would I go about calling them? ;-) Mary From: Chasen, Les
[mailto:les.chasen@neustar.biz] http://www.w3.org/2008/03/13-tagmem-minutes.html#item03 contact: =les voice: =les/(+phone) chat: =les/skype/chat pibb me =les/+pibb |
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