Re: resource and representation

Patrick Stickler wrote:
> 
>...
> Whoa, hold on now. You're now saying that metadata describing
> a resource is a representation of that resource?! And just how
> are we going to differentiate, say, between a representation of
> an RDF/XML instance which is bit-for-bit identitical with the
> actual resource and another RDF/XML instance which describes the
> resource?

I feel like you aren't listening. 

The HTTP view is that resources are abstract. They do not have bits.
Therefore, there can be no ambiguity about what is delivered on the
wire. The only ambiguity is introduced because one group of people
believes this and another group of people believes that resources have
bits. Once we agree one way or another, any ambiguity will disappear.

>....
> > urn:
> > URIs do not have that nice property and in my mind are thus strictly
> > inferior.
> 
> No, given DDDS, urn: and http: URIs are no different whatsoever in
> this regard. Yes, http: URIs are easier to deploy at the moment,
> but they do not differ in the way you suggest, technically.

Now I *know* you are not listening. You quoted as little as possible
above because the full quote would have disallowed your rebuttal:

> Even without going that far we can observe that HTTP URIs have
> the nice property that it is extremely easy for someone with a web
> server and the appropriate domain name to scalably and globally
> associate metadata in the form of representations with resources. urn:
> URIs do not have that nice property and in my mind are thus strictly
> inferior.

Please note the words "extremely easy", "scalably" and "globally".

I give up. I've said it all six times by now.

-- 
Come discuss XML and REST web services at:
  Open Source Conference: July 22-26, 2002, conferences.oreillynet.com
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Received on Friday, 5 July 2002 07:41:59 UTC