Re: Reconsidering REST

For me, I don't really care that much how things are specified as long 
as there are test cases for interoperability and the specification is 
reasonably rigorous. I believe that the argument that the language of a 
specification is crucial to its adoption is somewhat silly. I don't 
think that XML caught on with enterprise developers because the idea of 
the infoset was something that resonated with them. (There are many 
other forces that affect the adoption of a specification, such as 
educational materials and working code, but also many practical ones 
such as adoption by Big Players.)

Anyways, as I've expressed elsewhere I think removing the recommendation 
that POST to a graph be append is a mistake.

Also, I couldn't support this version of the specification because of 
this removal:

"""
GSHP defines how to construct URIs for access to graphs in SPARQL 
datasets, with a graphstore+"?graph="+graphlabel construct. Perhaps this 
is better done in the SPARQL Service Description, instead, with a 
predicate relating the dataset to a URI prefix string, not necessarily 
graphstore+"?graph=".)
"""

...that makes the specification largely useless to me.

Lee

On 12/16/2011 2:41 PM, Sandro Hawke wrote:
> So, I've tried to express my concerns with the Graphstore HTTP Protocol
> document by writing a new document.  I know that seems a little crazy,
> but I needed to try to make sense of this protocol for a very different
> audience.   The two documents are very similar in the behavior they
> specify, but entirely different in focus and approach.  In particular,
> the one I drafted leaves out SPARQL and is agnostic about SPARQL
> artifacts like datasets and graph stores and endpoints.   To motivate
> that a little, I'll quote our "SPARQL New Features and Rationale", which
> says, "It should be possible to manipulate RDF graphs using HTTP verbs,
> notably PUT, POST and DELETE. By this, clients doesn't need to know the
> SPARQL language to update graphs when it is not needed."   I read that
> to say this should be welcoming to people who don't want to learn SPARQL
> or SPARQL concepts.
>
> Anyway, here it is:
>
>          http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/REST
>
> For people who don't know, this area is the focus of a possible new
> Working Group, which is why I'm suddenly so interested in it.  See:
>
>          http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ldp/2011Dec/0000
>
> for more on that.
>
>        -- Sandro
>
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 16 December 2011 22:07:59 UTC