Re: The right question (HTTPRange-14)

* Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> [2003-07-27 20:55-0700]
> 
> Jonathan Borden wrote:
> 
> >So where does that leave us with respect to "document about weather in
> >Oaxala" vs "concept weather in Oaxala" -- it seems to depend on how we
> >define it. What prevents someone from saying:
> >
> ><http://weather.example.com/oaxaca> rdf:type web:document .
> >or *instead* saying:
> ><http://weather.example.com/oaxaca> rdf:type ex:weatherLocation .
> >
> >The SW treats URIs as opaque. The current Web doesn't care about what the
> >range of HTTP URIs is. What is the actual physical purpose of making this
> >distinction?
> >
> >Pat suggests that SW agents need to know. If so we can use assertions to
> >tell them.
> 
> Yes.  This is *exactly* the question I've been trying to ask, but 
> haven't put it as clearly as Jonathan did.  I just think that 
> inferencing the range of a URI based on its scheme feels fragile and 
> inflexible.  Especially since the taxonomic division between what 
> Jonathan calls a web:document and other kind of things feels like just 
> one of a hundred interesting assertions one might want to make about 
> whatever a URI names, and for damn sure we can't infer all of them from 
> the syntax. -Tim

Well said.

Dan (hoping for a minimally constraining decision that allows RDF 
classes and properties within http:'s range)