Re: WebDAV Bindings - Issue Yaron.Insulting2616, definition of resource

Roy, thanks for what you said in the first part of this note.

  And whatever you think while reading this, keep in mind that the resource
  is not the storage thingy on the back-end -- it is the concept being
  referenced by the originator of the URI.

Agreed.

  I don't understand how
  the server is supposed to know what the resource is when the user is
  allowed to create new bindings willy-nilly.  Therefore, either the
  server needs to be told what the resource is when the bindings are
  created (which doesn't seem likely, since most of the users wouldn't
  understand the difference) or the definition of DELETE should be changed
  to reflect the easier-to-grasp notion of removing the binding.

Are those the only choices?...

Can't we leave the definition of resource suitably vague as we and
our predecessors have?  If we do I suspect servers will drive a
WebDAV compliant definition that content authors on their site will
use.  Not the opposite.

  Almost all servers will support the model of
flat/dead file or repository object that basically is just an echo of
a PUT/GET.provide their own underlying meaning of resource.    A server
might also offer support for more intelligent objects like servlets or
perl scripts and also treat those as resources.  The author's job is
to encapsulate his concept of a resource within the one of the server's
concepts of a resource which is probably a file or some sort of
repostiory object.

As I just said, most of the time, the server will drive a WebDAV compliant
concept of a resource that that the content authors will use.
One likely  exceptions is the concept of a resource essentially being
at the URI.  This model doesn't need server support and may not leverage
the server model or even necessarily the WebDAV model of resource.  An
example is,
"page_of_the_day.html".  Certainly the author could use a proxy
resource that essentially gets it's contents from other resources depending
on today's date, but it's more likely that the author will just choose to
rebind that URI each day.  Sure, the casual referencer's
concept of the resource will not be the same as the server's, but the right
thing happens.  Does it matter that the author chose to have one foot in
each model?

Jason.

PS. I hate HTML mail too.

Received on Monday, 17 January 2000 20:30:24 UTC