Using HTTP URIs and making things globally unique are orthogonal.  You are, again, assuming a specific implementation rather than describing the desired behavior.  You _could_ produce a system using HTTP URIs that were not consistent/unique/etc., just as you could produce a system based on UUIDs that changed as the infrastructure changed.  This is allegedly a RESTful API, please use the techniques of a good RESTful API, like embedding HTTP URIs, and describe the construction and semantics of the pieces as needed.

Now, will someone please explain why, exactly, we are not basing this work on the Sun API?  I've asked several times now and have either been ignored or gotten hand waving.


Ben

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net> wrote:
On 5/7/09, Benjamin Black <b@b3k.us> wrote:
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Good question and good to see people payong close attentipn. We know
>> we can find the resources at the root of the entry point so I'm more
>> inclined to use the href as an internal pointer than confuse things
>> when there are multiple servers potentially talking about the same
>> resources. we can use 3xx redirects as a kind of resolution system if
>> need be too.
>>
>> Sam on iPhone
>>
>
> I wish I could assume you were joking here.  Of course they should be HTTP
> URIs!  The confusion in the multi-provider case would come _because_ we did
> not specify a single entry point.  The logic of exposing some internal
> reference and then using redirects to paper over by translating to an
> external reference eludes me.

Actually it makes a lot of sense. The IDs are UUID based URNs and if
we have a feed we want to be able to link resources together without
having to futz with URLs. The entry point will either have a resource
it gave you or know where to find it anyway so resolution is a
non-problem.

Say we design a system where individual
workstations/servers/clusters/etc each implement OCCI and have a
common network resource then we definitely don't want to get different
pointers from each of them. Same applies for resources that move (e.g.
Live migrations), which would likely be the primary use case dr said
redirects.

Sam