RE: 2.3 URI Ambiguity

The confusion:  one doesn't know what a resource is, 
so ambiguity creeps in right there, typically confusion 
of representation and resource.

Is a person identified by a mailto a resource or 
a representation of a resource?  To me, the answer 
is obvious.  A person is neither a resource nor a 
representation.  The use of the mailto in that 
example is colloquial.  The architecture does not 
apply.

A database is a resource if identified by a URI.  
A record in a database is a resource if a representation 
is available for that record whose identifier is a URI.  
A field in a database field is a resource if it 
can be identified by a URI (typically, plus a fragment).
  
A value returned on query is a representation.

len


From: Walden Mathews [mailto:waldenm@optonline.net]

If I had some examples, I'd offer them.  But I'm actually 
still unclear on the issue.  I thought "A URI identifies one
resource" was axiomatic in the Web.  And if that's the case, 
then the architecture rules out "URI ambiguity", and this
Best Practice ends up redundant and/or vacuous.

I need some examples to see why the above
is not simply the case.

Received on Tuesday, 2 December 2003 14:38:37 UTC