- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>
- Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 14:55:29 -0700
- To: Koen Holtman <koen@win.tue.nl>
- Cc: jschroeder@becomsys.de, http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
>It is generally not a good idea to redefine terms, even if the
>original definition is somehow wrong. Having two incompatible
>definitions of 'variant' around can only lead to confusion. If you
>have some interesting concept you want to define a term for, there are
>plenty of other, uncontaminated, words you could pick.
I agree. From the Merriam Webster online dictionary:
variant
noun
Date: 1848
: one of two or more persons or things exhibiting
usually slight differences: as a : one that exhibits
variation from a type or norm b : one of two or
more different spellings (as labor and labour) or
pronunciations (as of economics \ek-, Ek-\) of the
same word c : one of two or more words (as
geographic and geographical) or word elements
(as mon- and mono-) of essentially the same
meaning differing only in the presence or absence
of an affix
It makes absolutely no sense whasoever to use the term variant to
describe a singleton representation. The HTTP spec does so because
somebody wanted a shortcut and didn't like the word "representation".
The HTTP spec only needs to be self-consistent, so this is not a
technical error -- it is just confusing. I refuse to allow that confusion
to propagate into anything else I write about the Web, including e-mail.
....Roy
Received on Sunday, 11 April 1999 15:04:29 UTC