Etan Wexler wrote to Microformats Discuss:I'm sorry, but this is flat out wrong. Nothing in REST, nothing in WWW architecture, and certainly nothing in Roy T Fielding's dissertation forbids constructing URIs based on "out of band documentation". This is one of the most pernicious misunderstandings of web architecture that I feel compelled to help stamp it out.
>REST does not permit programmatic construction of URIs in which the
>construction uses of out-of-band knowledge and bits of data.
Here's what RTF has to say on the matter (see http://rest.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RestAndUriOpacity#nid1SK):
"REST does not require that a URI be opaque. The only place where the word opaque occurs in my dissertation is where I complain about the opaqueness of cookies. In fact, RESTful applications are, at all times, encouraged to use human-meaningful, hierarchical identifiers in order to maximize the serendipitous use of the information beyond what is anticipated by the original application." (1SK) And here is what the W3C TAG currently has to say about it: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/metaDataInURI-31.
In short, the only time a URI should be considered opaque is when the person looking at it has no documentation or code (eg a FORM element) to support their speculation of what the components of the URI might mean. To put it simply: URI's mean only what authorized code or documentation says what they mean (and how they can be composed); don't speculate from the text embedded in the URI what the rules are for composing such a URI.
-- Nick
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