Re: Draft: Universal Document Identifiers

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Wed, 11 Mar 1992 10:15:21 PST

Um, I think when I tell you about a document, I can tell you:
a)Some attributes about it that you can remember and use for
finding it again.
b)its signature/fingerprint/checksum whatever
This helps you know whether you already have exactly what I'm
referring to or can get it more locally.
c)some information about where I think you can get it and how
d)a set of instructions you can use for getting it.

So I have a book here. a) It is called "Programming Perl", by Larry
Wall and Randal L. Schwartz. b) it is ISBN 0-937175-64-1. c) it is
part of the O'Reilly & Associatiates series of Unix books, try a
technical library d) If it were available for FTP, it would be in
//ora.com/nuts/books/perl/1991-edition.

The last two are a little strained in the analogy; don't jump on the
analogy, please, I just want to point out that it is reasonable and
customary to supply *MORE THAN ONE* of unique identifier, serial
number, access path, common attributes, etc.