- From: Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:03:31 -0700
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Cc: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>, Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>
Thank you all for this discussion. It appears that the path of least resistance is for me to change the terminology in the next draft, which I will do. Adam On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Roy T. Fielding<fielding@gbiv.com> wrote: > On Jun 16, 2009, at 7:45 AM, Jamie Lokier wrote: >> >> 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. > > No, (http://example.com/post-news/) is not *the* resource. > It may be a resource, but it is not the resource to which > the URI above identifies, and therefore your assumption about > the meaning of "resource" in Web architecture is wrong. > >> 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? > > Because it isn't a conceptual mistake. Your mistake is assuming > that "resource" has something to do with the implementation behind > the server interface. Ian's mistake is assuming that what people > refer to is the bag of bits they get back, as opposed to the function > being exploited by the request method on the server-provided resource > at the time of the request (e.g., if the link is to today's weather > report then the resource is today's weather report, not some former > weather report's bag of bits). > > In any case, the word "resource" is far more commonly used the way > I use it than the way that Ian described. As indicated, it comes > direct from the English language. Ian's opinion is simply wrong > and you can't "simplify" a specification by defining the basic > architectural elements incorrectly. > > ....Roy > > >
Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 17:04:24 UTC