Re: terminology for purple numbers

[Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com>]

Eugene Eric Kim wrote:
> 
>     location number => sid (structured ID)
> 
> However, I'm a little uncomfortable with (that), because it changes
> the meaning of one of Doug's terms....-- it's nicely consistent 
> w/ "nid", and I'm leaning towards it.  What do you folks think?
> 
1. Can you give me a little more background on the change in meaning
   you refer to?    (01)

2. Alternative "id" names:
   Location ID: LID    (02)

3. In general, I'm in favor of NOT using "ID" for anything but
   the ID, where ID will eventually be a globally unique 
   node identifier (nid). (gun?)    (03)

   So, for a structure identifier, I'd be inclined to use
   "path" or "relpath" in the name.    (04)

A completely-specified name, in fact, would also tell what
the path was relative *to*. So docpathtonode might indicate
a path from a document, while nodepathtonode might indicate
a path from a node.    (05)

Both those names are unacceptably long, and in any case we
are assuming doc-based addressing, so "node path" might make
a reasonable name.     (06)

Here are some possibilies based on that line of reasoning:
  * Node Path: NP
  * Structure Path: SP
  * Node structure path: NSP
  * Hierarchical node path: HNP
  * Table of Contents path: TOC
    +-I kind of like this, because the notion of a TOC 
      represents hierarchical structure. It assumes the
      the kind of hierarchical path identification we are
      trying to capture. So "toc:1A3B" pretty much tells
      me at glance how to interpret "1A3B".
    +-Having the name be radically different from NID
      also helps to identify the thing at a glance, 
      and prevents confusions, typographic errors, and the
      like.    (07)