Comments on: URLs or URis, What’s the difference?

By: Rob Young

Rob Young — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:11:44 +0000

I'm sorry, but this just isn't correct. A URI is the superset of URL and URN. A URN defining a resources identity and a URL defines it's location. I think the Wikipedia example describes it best; a URN is like a person's name while a URL is like their street address. The address of this page is a URN because it uniquely identifies this blog post, it is a URL because it allows a browser to locate it and it is a URI because it is one of those things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_I...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Url

By: Rob Young

Rob Young — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:11:44 +0000

By: Roger Wilco

Roger Wilco — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:49:41 +0000

Your distinction between URI and URL is very arbitrary. There is a specific definition of what's a URI and what's a URL. It's written down in RFC 3986 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt).

For example, urn:oasis:names:specification:docbook:dtd:xml:4.1.2 is a URI (and more specifically a URN) but not a URL. It's understandable by humans none the less. On the other hand, both of your examples http://tinyurl.com/yj432kb and http://tinyurl.com/thirdpartycode are URIs and more specifically URLs.

By: David A.

David A. — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:08:43 +0000

The funniest thing that David is forgetting is that there are actually a HUGE number of competent programmers/designers/project managers/savvy business owners who would take advantage of it. His opening about “J. Random Programmer” exemplifies that and I think if it's not much more work then we should try to include that audience. It's the same reason why some people still support IE6.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:27:49 +0000

I tend to agree. I suspect it does matter more than David says, but I do think it is less important to Average Joe than URL beauty queens like me want to believe.