Re: RDF query and Rules - my two cents

Patrick Stickler wrote:

>> Ok. You want URI opacity.
> 
> Absolutely. I consider that a core requirement for achieving
> a trully scalable, flexible, and ubiquitous SW.

Ok.


>>
>> Yikes. Remind me again, what relevance does the SW have to the web? 
>> And if the method has no web relevance, why do we want to run the it 
>> on the web?
>>
> 
> Because the web offers a globally deployed, proven infrastructure
> for inter-agent communication.
> 
> Just because those agents might in some cases use a specialized
> language (i.e. a few new, special verbs) doesn't mean they are
> not web agents benefitting from the rest of the web architecture.

True, but the aggregate/macro effects need to be taken into 
consideration as well as the special. I'm no fan of slippery slope 
arguments, but a few specialized verbs here and there and you no 
longer have uniformity, you have pseudo-uniformity, or worst case 
you have distributed middleware... ;) Essentially the counter is 
that such agents and servers would do better to bend to the existing 
infrastructure than vice versa.


>> So your premise is essentially this: a network of resource 
>> descriptions cannot be adequately modelled using representations on 
>> the deployed web without a) breaking URI opacity, b) involving header 
>> metadata, therefor we need a new HTTP method?
>>
> 
> That sounds about right.

Ok.


> But REST is about representations. The SW can be very RESTful yet
> still have special needs, and hence extensions, that are out of
> scope for REST.

Nonetheless, I'd be interested in what the REST folks think about 
such limitations with respect to descriptions.



> Then it doesn't. If the server doesn't understand the WebDAV
> methods, then you can't interact with it in that fashion. If
> it doesn't understand the SW methods, then you can't interact
> with it in that fashion.
> 
> That's how extensions work, right?

Put it this way; if it's that simple, why do we worry about having a 
minimal and uniform interface constraint for the web?


>> I did miss it. Links?
>>
> 
> It was discussed in length on this list around the beginning of
> the year. I could dig out the code from my drawer of backups, though
> I think that the use cases I've outlined are sufficient for demonstrating
> the flaws in that approach.

I can dig that out, thanks. But some questions:

  - was there any suggestion of an RFC for the new method?

  - has this specfic issue been raised with the TAG?

  - do any pertinent W3C IG's have a position on this?


> And if I or others who share these views fail to convince the
> web community, then we SW folks can simply deploy our extended servers
> and those who don't care about that "narrow usecase" can just ignore us.

Well sure, do what you want.

Bill de hÓra

Received on Thursday, 20 November 2003 09:30:36 UTC