On the whole, the proposed RFC seems a sound piece of work. Although
the underlying principles (usable in hard-copy, simplicity of syntax)
aren't stated explicitly, they are applied consistently and
intuitively, except for the Gopher URLs (see below).
The explanations are short, but sufficient, except that in two or
three places a sentence seems to be missing and one whole section
seems to be lost.
Ad 2) To start with that last omission: section 2 states that there will be
a section on what I assume are `partial URLs'. The section will presumably
contain the rules for abbreviating and expanding URLs in the context
of a `base URL'. However, no such section exists.
Ad 3.2.1) In the last sentence of 3.2.1, an example is given with an
empty path segment. The example seems to suggest that the non-empty
path segment (`etc') that is present as well will be ignored.
Ad 3.3) The last sentence of 3.3 mentions that HTTP URLs have a
`hierarchical structure'. It isn't explained what this entails.
Ad 3.4) The Gopher URLs are the only part of the document that seems a
little messy. The meaning of a URL seems to depend on subtle things,
such as the presence of a `7' at the start. Moreover, the semantic
differences are not reflected in the grammar in section 5. Gopher URLs
are also the only URLs where an escape (%09) functions as a
delimiter. I think that is contrary to the concept of escapes, which
is that they *remove* any special meaning.
Ad 3.8) The telnet section ends with the statement that any username
and password are `advisory only'. I can imagine what that means, but
shouldn't it be stated explicitly?
Another thing that I missed in the document is the explanation of `#'
to refer to an anchor inside a document. I think there are arguments
in favour of including the `#'. For one, most people would say that a
URL with a `#' in it is still a URL. Secondly, the same principles of
readability and printability apply to the anchor as to the rest of the
URL. Thirdly, it is very likely that the anchor will one day have to
be transferred over a network (the same happened to the hostname and
port, after the introduction of proxies.)
Currently, the `#' is only used to refer to parts of (or points in)
HTML documents, but this RFC could pave the way for a more general
application.
Bert
-- ___________________________________________________________________________ ####[ Bert Bos ]####[ Alfa-informatica, ]#### ####[ <bert@let.rug.nl> ]####[ Rijksuniversiteit Groningen ]#### ####[ http://www.let.rug.nl/~bert/ ]####[ Postbus 716 ]#### ####[ ]####[ NL-9700 AS GRONINGEN ]#### ####[______________________________]####[_____________________________]####+++ Hey! I'm a .signature virus. Help me and include me in your .sig file! +++