Re: Example for consideration: Resource versus Representation

On 2008-01 -23, at 12:51, Pat Hayes wrote:

> At 11:34 PM -0500 1/22/08, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
>> Are representations resources?
>
> They can be (anything CAN be a resource....), but its not usually  
> very useful to want to treat them as resources, I'd say.
>
>>
>> I have heard the argument that they are not. In this morning's call  
>> I agreed to send an example I've been thinking about.
>> Consider some Information Resource that responds to a request with  
>> a Representation of type application/pdf.
>
> Wrong way to put it. You are making 'representation' into a  
> category, but it should be a relationship. That thing you get back  
> is required by the REST architecture to be a representation OF the  
> IR. That is, whatever we call this thing you get back, it bears a  
> webarch:represents relationship to the IR. Saying that doesn't say  
> what kind of thing the representation is, only that it represents.  
> So we can (using this confusing language we all speak) nominalize  
> this and say that it 'is a representation', but that shouldn't be  
> taken to mean that this means (or at any rate, that it  
> meansusefully) that it is a category of Things called Representations.
>
>>

Exactly.