The web as a technology

Users of the Web are familiar with URLs, the Uniform Resource Locators. A URL is a locator for a network accessible resource. Such a locator can be considered an identifier for the resource that it refers to. Depending on the interpretation of identification, various different attributes of a resource could be considered as an identifier for that resource. However, what comprises a functional resource identifier depends upon the context in which that identifier will be used. For example, in a group of five people, identifying individuals by weight is unlikely to be practical. In many situations, we assign a name to an object and use this attribute as the object identifier. Such names also have to be chosen with regard to the context in which it will be used in order to be functional. Back to the example of a group of people, we may refer to a particular person by a combination of their fore and surnames. This name label would probably adequately identify a particular person in a group of five.
The Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) are a set of character strings, defined by a generic URI syntax, that are used for identifying resources. A URI provides a simple and extensible means for identifying a resource that can then be used within applications. The URI specification implements the recommendations of various functional recommendations (see further information below).