Re: [xri] POLL: Syntax 2.0 or 2.1

["Tan, William" <William.Tan@neustar.biz>]

Aside from being more aesthetically pleasing, I've never understood 
concatenated or compact syntax and have been uncomfortable with it but 
couldn't really pinpoint what was wrong. Ever since Steve has been 
bringing up issues and questions with the concatenated syntax, it has 
shown that even though the identifier looks simpler, looks are 
deceptive. My "geekth" sense tells me that identifiers should be robust, 
predictable, easily parsable and should not be a kitchen sink. A 
programming language such as Perl can get away with TIMTOWTDI, 
identifiers can't.

Of course, we are attracted to XRI because of its expressive power. 
However, this power could be used against us if it creates confusion and 
presents a steep learning curve for developers. Drummond's motivation 
seems to be centered around the end user, but end users interact with 
the identifier on a very superficial level, and they can be educated to 
do simple things like "if you want to add a +blog to =foo, put it within 
/()". Most likely, they're going to use at most a two-subsegment XRI 
like "=foo" and let the GUI do the more complex stuff for them. That 
"complex stuff" is what developers need to deal with and therefore has 
to be simple.

The bottomline for me is: the current syntax gives a good mix of 
expressivity and is widely deployed; we could go to a community specs 
with minor changes.

=wil

Schleiff, Marty wrote:
> YIPPEE! Wil returns from the dark side!
>
> -1 
>
>
> Marty.Schleiff@boeing.com; CISSP
> Associate Technical Fellow - Cyber Identity Specialist
> Computing Security Infrastructure
> (206) 679-5933
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tan, William [mailto:William.Tan@neustar.biz] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 3:25 PM
> To: xri@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [xri] POLL: Syntax 2.0 or 2.1
>
> We did an informal poll at the f2f two weeks ago on whether we should
> stick with XRI Syntax 2.0. I suggest we vote again on the list.
>
> +1 - to support concatenated syntax
> 0 - don't care
> -1 - no concatenated syntax
>
> I'm reverting my vote to -1 because the solution is too confusing IMHO.
>
> =wil
>
>
>