It is extraordinary how in just over a decade Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) have entered everyday life to such an extent that they are now found practically everywhere - from the side of buses to the back of cornflake packets. But this universality tends to mask the fact that they suffer from a serious defect. Everyone has encountered the problem, which manifests itself as the dreaded "404 page not found" message. The trouble is that changes in site design, file directories and domain names can easily make a URL obsolete, with no means of automatically redirecting to the new Internet location (where it exists). What is needed is a standard way of permanently naming a digital resource similar to that provided by the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for analogue books. The solution is to move from URLs to URNs: Uniform Resource Names. The important thing about URNs is that they do not point directly to an Internet resource, but are rather a placeholder for the location and other metadata. This means that the URN does not need to change if the URL does: it is enough to update the redirection.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:10 AM
