Re: Change Proposal for HttpRange-14

On 3/25/12 7:18 AM, Hugh Glaser wrote:
> Fair questions, Michael.
> I have a lot of sympathy for your "I don't see the point of this whole discussion".
> We can write what we want in documents, but the world can ignore them - and will if they don't work.
> And the world will be what it is, not what we want it to be.
>
> However.
> Unfortunately, perhaps, standards are important for people who work in the field providing systems to others.
> Personally, I never did agree with the solution, but have always aimed to carry out the implications of it in the systems I construct.
>
> This is for two reasons:
> a) as a member of a small community, it is destructive to do otherwise;
> b) as a professional engineer, my ethical obligations require me to do so.
>
> It is this second, the ethical obligations that are the most significant.
> I should not digress from the standards, or even Best Practice, in my work.
> (Apart from anything else, the legal implications of doing otherwise are very unpleasant.)
>
> This means that systems involving Linked Data do not get built because the options I am allowed to offer are too expensive (in money, complexity, time or business disruption), or technologically infeasible due to local constraints.

But as an engineer the complexity of the spec shouldn't determine the 
very essence of the spec. The whole AWWW is about the "deceptively 
simple" principle in action. It isn't a "simply simple" solution.

We have URI abstraction and styles of URIs (hash or slash). The system 
(Linked Data in this case) is concerned about separation of powers right 
down to the fine-grained level of structured data representation. As 
result, there are implications that arise from the style of URI used in 
this context.

Since 1998 we've ended up with the following syntaxes and serializations 
formats for the RDF model (EAV enhanced with URIs, language tags, and 
typed literals):

1. RDF/XML
2. N3
3. Turtle
4. TriX
5. N-Triples
7. TriG
8. NQuad
9. (X)HTML+RDFa
10. HTML+Microdata
11. JSON/RDF
12. JSON-LD.

Don't you see a pattern here? Also what's an innocent newbie supposed to 
do when they encounter the above.

Now we want repeat the pattern, this time scoped to URIs and they usage 
re. Linked Data fidelity:

1. hash -- Linked Data indirection is implicit
2. slash -- 303 redirection delivering Linked Data indirection explicitly
3. slash -- 200 OK and no redirection leaving user agents to process 
relations (and HTTP response headers) en route to manifestation of 
Linked Data's mandatory indirection.

Again, don't you see the same pattern is taking shape i.e., a potpourri 
of suggestions that ultimately only add more confusion to newbies. Even 
worse, this particular suggest is ultimately a reworking of the entire 
AWWW.

> So the answer to your first question is yes: semantic web (parts of) projects are stopped because of this.

I don't buy that for one second. There's a little more to it than that.  
How about the tools being used for these projects? You statement implies 
the very best tools available where used and they failed. You know that 
cannot be true.

>   Ethics and community membership requires it.
> When they do go ahead, of course they actually cause me some pain - implementing a situation I think is significantly sub-optimal - but I do not have the choice.

We have to separate issues here. We have:

1. a spec or set of best practices;
2. tools that implement the spec or best practices;
3. projects seeking to exploit the spec or best practices.

You are basically ruling out tool choices as reasons for project failure.

>
> Of course, people who are outside this community will do what they feel like, as always.

And in due course opportunity costs force them to reevaluate their 
choices. Decision makers in commercial enterprises don't care about 
technology, they are fundamentally preoccupied with opportunity costs. 
Make opportunity costs palpable and you have the ear of any decision 
maker in charge of a commercial venture.

> But the current situation constrains the people in the community, who are the very people who should be helping others to build systems that are a little less broken.

It doesn't. I just don't buy that. You can have Structured Data that 
isn't Linked Data. We can't have it both ways. Why not move folks over 
in stages i.e., get them to Structured Data first, then upgrade them to 
Linked Data since the virtues of the upgrade will have much clearer 
context since Structured Data modulo Linked Data fidelity has clear 
limitations. Basically, turn what seems to be today's headache into a 
narrative showcasing specific virtues.

Also note, we don't have a bookmarking problem with any style of URI for 
Linked Data. People can start by bookmarking the URLs of Information 
Resources.


Kingsley
>
> Best
> Hugh
>
> On 25 Mar 2012, at 11:03, Michael Brunnbauer wrote:
>
>> Hello Jeni,
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:13:09AM +0100, Jeni Tennison wrote:
>>> I agree we shouldn't blame publishers who conflate IRs and NIRs. That is not what happens at the moment. Therefore we need to change something.
>> Do you think semantic web projects have been stopped because some purist
>> involved did not see a way to bring httprange14 into agreement with the
>> other intricacies of the project ? Those purists will still see the new
>> options that the proposal offers as what they are: Suboptimal.
>>
>> Or do you think some purists have been actually blaming publishers ? What will
>> stop them in the future to complain like this: Hey, your website consists
>> solely of NIRs, I cannot talk about it! Please use 303.
>>
>> You are solving the problem by pretending that the IRs are not there then
>> the publisher does not make the distinction between IR and NIR.
>>
>> Maybe we can optimize the wording of standards and best practise guides to
>> something like "these are the optimal solutions. Many people also do it this
>> way but this has the following drawbacks..."
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Michael Brunnbauer
>>
>> -- 
>> ++  Michael Brunnbauer
>> ++  netEstate GmbH
>> ++  Geisenhausener Straße 11a
>> ++  81379 München
>> ++  Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
>> ++  Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
>> ++  E-Mail brunni@netestate.de
>> ++  http://www.netestate.de/
>> ++
>> ++  Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
>> ++  USt-IdNr. DE221033342
>> ++  Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
>> ++  Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
>>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen