Re: new text for Information Resource (section 3.1)

On Sep 9, 2004, at 7:37 AM, Sandro Hawke wrote:
>> I suspect that your definition of "state" is not quite the same as 
>> mine.
>
> Looking over some definitions for "state" [1], I disagree.  We're
> using the word "state" in essentially the same way, I'm just thinking
> that the *entire* state needs to be transmitted, and you're thinking
> it's fine to transmit some particular information which is in some
> way extracted or derived from the complete state.
>
> AWWW says:
>
>      Note: In this document, the noun "representation" means "octets
>      that encode resource state information". These octets do not
>      necessarily describe the resource, or portray a likeness of the
>      resource, or represent the resource in other senses of the word
>      "represent".
>
> not saying either "...encode all resource state information..."  or
> "...encode some resource state information...".   If I were a judge
> trying to guess the intent, I'd probably read "some" into there, but
> when I'm thinking "all" I can read that text without noticing any
> contradiction.   Superb weasel text.

Weasel or not, it is obvious from the Web as implemented that
representations do vary in quality and that such variations are
actually codified in HTTP/1.1's description of content negotiation.
In fact, it is more reasonable to say that representations rarely
provide the entire state of the resource, since there is a great
deal of metadata that is never communicated to clients.

....Roy

Received on Friday, 10 September 2004 00:22:38 UTC