HTTP mechanics +1, IR semantics -1

My notes from last Tuesday's telecon say the following:

Tim's goal is to have an ontology [I would have called it an "RDF  
schema"], and maybe eventually feed it into a TAG finding. The  
ontology is to be driven first by what tabulator needs, then adding  
rules to cover some of the semantics of headers. Then later, define  
what it means for something to be a semantic web client; such a thing  
should do the following things, among others: read rdf, do grddl,  
understand rdfa.

The ontology would be useful for caches and catalogs - the client  
would know what information is sufficient (on this day this server  
responded with an expiry date of ...) to reliably access resources  
without having to go to the web.

Also desirable: an ontology for indicating how a server gives a hint  
to a client about multiple versions.

Tim resisted the suggestion that it might be worthwhile to develop a  
better definition of "information resource" since he thinks this is  
not a question of ontological relationships in an open system but  
rather one of type checking in what Tim views as a programming- 
language-like notation. Tim has previously offered to answer  
particular questions of the form "is X an information resource" but  
now states that any effort to create guidelines that would answer such  
questions generically would be a waste of time.

(End of notes.)

That's fine, I can work with that. My hypothesis going back to last  
summer that there was synergy between Tim's aims and mine in this  
activity may turn out to be false, but so it goes. I suggest we work  
to get this simpler job (what I call "HTTP mechanics") out of the way  
as quickly as possible and declare victory. If a group not containing  
Tim wants to continue to talk about IRs, that's fine, and I see no  
reason it couldn't make progress.

There's clearly a big cultural gulf here, though.

I do have a one or two remaining questions about IRs that are not  
related to the definition of the term, which I believe to still be in  
scope, and I will post these later.

Jonathan

Received on Monday, 7 July 2008 20:05:58 UTC