- From: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:45:01 +0100
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Cc: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Roy T. Fielding wrote: > On Jun 14, 2009, at 12:21 PM, Ian Hickson wrote: > >On Sun, 14 Jun 2009, Julian Reschke wrote: > >> > >>HTTP URIs are URLs, and URLs simply are URIs that also double as > >>locators (see RFC 3986). I don't see how this changes the > >>definition of > >>being an identifier at all. > > > >I'm not arguing that they aren't identifiers, I'm arguing that when > >you > >dereference them you get an actual concrete resource, and that saying > >that you get a resource representation is pointless and confusing > >hair- > >splitting which doesn't actually help people understand the specs when > >they implement them, since the thoretical "resource" construct never > >actually needs to be dealt with in practice. > > I'd like to see how you would describe a resource that accepts POSTed > information without ever returning a "bag of bits", how you are going > to describe a resource whose only purpose is to redirect to the > "site of the day", or how you would implement a gateway to my > friend's air conditioning unit. I could enumerate thousands of > examples of how limited your view of the Web really is, but then > I already have done that many times. Read the archives. Ok, but what about a resource that accepts POSTed information _and_ information in the URL? For example a hypothetical POSTable http://example.com/post-news/author-is/Jamie/subject-is/Good%20morning Then the URL doesn't point to the conceptual resource any more. Part of the URL does (http://example.com/post-news/); the rest of the URL does not identify a resource, but is input to it. Conceptually it's a mistake to equate "the thing that a specific URL refers to" with the useful concept of a "resource that we may interact with", because the most useful mapping often doesn't work that way. You can say that the thing identified by the above long URL is a resource, but it's a bit of a stretch and doesn't fit what it really does. So if it's a conceptual mistake, why is it useful in specifications? -- Jamie
Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 14:45:36 UTC