Re: Are generic resources intentional?

Pat Hayes wrote:
> On Jun 10, 2009, at 9:01 AM, Jonathan Rees wrote:
>
>   
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 9:28 AM, Pat Hayes<phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:
>>     
<snip/>
>> In the ICSE 2000 paper Roy says:
>>
>> "The key abstraction of information in REST is a resource. Any
>> information that can be named can be a resource: a document or image,
>> a temporal service (e.g. "today's weather in Los Angeles"), a
>> collection of other resources, a moniker for a non-virtual object
>> (e.g. a person), and so on."
>>
>> Are images agents?
>>     
>
> No, but I think the key phrase in the above is "which can be named",  
> which seems to be playing the same role that "has an identity" was  
> once used for. This notion of "named" or "identified" doesn't mean  
> 'referred to': it means, in this context, "can be accessed by using  
> its name", which when you unpack it carefully means something like "is  
> being handled by some active system or agent which can deal  
> effectively with transfer protocols for appropriately syntaxed names".
>
> But OK, I concede that this quote does muddy my water. I am puzzled.  
> Roy also says that a resource is conceptually a function from times to  
> representations (and in 2000, that a solid, physical book on a shelf  
> is also a resource, a position which *really* does not make sense.)  
>   
In Roy's paper the functions are to sets of equivalent representations 
AND/OR (I don't remember how it was framed in the paper) URIs. The paper 
does not expand much on the latter, but I have taken him to be speaking 
of the URI used as 3xx redirection targets (though I have never tested 
that with him). Allowing the redirection to something else descriptive 
of said "solid, physical book on a shelf" does kind of make sense, 
though you may suggest tis to be post-hoc on my part.

<snip/>

Stuart

Received on Friday, 12 June 2009 17:03:49 UTC