Craig Johnson has posted a wonderful essay which says in part:
Are ISBNs really the best data? Don't know, let it sort out with implementations. How should I really expose ISBNs? Don't know, let it sort out with implementation. What other info should be exposed? Don't know, let it sort out with implementation. And if "meaningful URLs" are the basis of that sorting out, I am confident that the result will be a diverse and vibrant community of tools that benefit everyone in the food chain. [ Craig Johnson's Radio Weblog]
Yes. And the simplest tools are only automating what people can easily discover and manually perform. Take a look at this seemingly innocuous item over at The Shifted Librarian (via Rick Klaus) today:
If you remove the filename appellateblog.xml and just go to http://appellateblog.blogspot.com/rss/ , you get a complete list of all RSS feeds at BlogSpot hosted sites.
I've had a bunch of emails in the last few days from people saying things like "Of course, I know nothing about programming, but I twiddled the URL and it worked!"
Bing!
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/12/20.html#a550