Re: URI and Web Architecture Revisited

Mark Wilkinson wrote:
> Xiaoshu, This is a beautiful synopsis of the problem - THANK YOU for 
> taking the time to write it up as well as you did!  I will be using 
> this in my lectures for sure!  :-)
Thanks for the compliment.
>
> What made me chuckle was how similar the DFDF concept is to the LSID 
> concept... except that the LSID doesn't rely on any HTTP response 
> codes to determine what is what (it's all explicit, since there is no 
> way to ask a URI what it is but to query the metadata; and there is no 
> concept of content-negotiation in LSIDs since all various 
> representations should be referred to explicitly in the metadata... so 
> there are no shortcuts to getting the representation that you desire)
That is true (the similarity between DFDF and LSID).  That is one of the 
arguments that I use against LSID because anything that LSID can do, 
HTTP can do too.  The difference is that the definition of metadata in 
LSID is illusive.  With HTTP, we can think RDF is the metadata.  Second, 
LSID must rely on web services but HTTP can use REST approach..
>
> Given that we have millions (billions?) of URLs out there in the 
> world, isn't it a bit optimistic to assume that they will all suddenly 
> become adherent to whatever we decide here?
>
> Personally, I am inclined to place my trust in a Semantic Web where I 
> know that the URIs I encounter are guarateed to have the behaviour 
> that I expect.  If I can't guarantee that from a URL (and I know that 
> I can't), then I can at least code my software to be more trusting of 
> other kinds of URIs... and non-trusting of URLs...
The semantic web stack layered cake 
(http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/0130-sb-W3CTechSemWeb/layerCake-4.png) put 
"trust" at the very top.  So, now we need to make them work first and 
then worry other things latter . :-)
>
>
>
> On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:51:17 -0800, Xiaoshu Wang <wangxiao@musc.edu> 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I have written down my thoughts on the URI's identity issue and some 
>> web architecture issues at "http://dfdf.inesc-id.pt/tr/web-arch".  
>> The writing mostly starts from the issue of "information resource" 
>> and httpRange-14 but touched on how we are suppose to view the web 
>> architecture.
>>
>> I think that I had contributed a great deal to bring the issue of 
>> "information resource and 303" to this mailing list.  But now I think 
>> back, my understanding in the past appeared to be wrong.  Hopefully, 
>> from this position paper, you may understand why I have changed my 
>> thinking so it may help you to understand the topic as well.
>>
>> Xiaoshu  
>>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 14 November 2007 10:15:44 UTC