Re: Back to HTTP semantics

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Williams, Stuart (HP Labs,
Bristol)<skw@hp.com> wrote:
>  the meme that RDF interpretration of URI are constrained by what might be called the Web natural interpretation is not original to me. Whilst I can understand and appreciate the denial that you mention in RDFMT with respect to the formalism presented there in - leaving interpretation unconstrained by the web itself - I think there are many who see interpretation implicitly constrained in that way when one joins the logical system RDF with the pragmatics of the web. Eg. If in RDF one were to use http://www.w3.org as a reference to my left foot, there would be an inconsistency in the total system even that were not so from the RDF interpretation alone.

I was not talking about memes or implicit constraints, which are a
different matter. This is sort of like saying people should only use
the C programming language for programming computers. It's empirically
mostly true, and why would you want to use it for any other reason? So
what's the problem?

If you can find a *normative* statement explicitly connecting RFC2396
"identification" to RDF "interpretation" I'll give you 10 quid (next
time I see you). I don't count AWWW, which quietly assumes the
connection in two inconspicuous spots. It is not prescriptive on this
point, and it's not clear that it would be normative even if it were
prescriptive.

I'm not saying that making the connection is necessarily a bad thing
(although it might be); just that it hasn't been done. I've already
suggested that introducing a new kind of RDF interpretation called a
"webarch-interpretation" might be a way to do it, although this
obviously takes us outside the realm of logical semantics and into
much more treacherous waters.

Jonathan

Received on Monday, 15 June 2009 16:17:19 UTC