Re: proposed change to a spec

Nathan wrote:
> David Booth wrote:
>> On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 02:06 +0000, Nathan wrote:
>>> I'm thinking about asking for HTTP-BIS to be changed, specifically 
>>> [[
>>>     A "representation" is information in a format that can be readily
>>>     communicated from one party to another. A resource representation is
>>>     a realization (copy/instance) of the state of that resource, as
>>>     observed at some point in the past (e.g., in a response to GET) 
>>> or to
>>>     be desired at some point in the future (e.g., in a PUT request).
>>> ]]
>>>
>>> does anybody here object?
>>
>> Yes, vehemently.  Obviously what you GET is some reflection of the state
>> of the resource, but the client cannot assume that the information it
>> receives reflects the *full* state of the resource.  Any amount of
>> complexity may be hidden behind the HTTP interface.  In fact, that
>> complexity may not even be deterministic.  Consider today's weather in
>> Oaxaca:
>> http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Oaxaca+Mexico+MXOA0069 The full 
>> state of that resource certainly cannot be conveyed in the HTTP
>> response.
> 
> what is the resource? information about the weather in Oaxaca Mexico, or 
> "the weather" in Oaxaca Mexico?
> 
> do you fundamentally disagree with the notion of "information resource", 
> such that the URI above in fact refers to the real world weather in that 
> place at any instant in time?

just for the sake of clarification, you may notice that weather.com 
clearly says that 
http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Oaxaca+Mexico+MXOA0069 is

title: "Oaxaca Weather Forecast and Conditions"
description: "Oaxaca weather forecast and weather conditions. Today’s 
Oaxaca weather plus a 36 hour forecast and Doppler radar from weather.com."

they certainly do not purport that the uri refers to "the weather in 
Oaxaca", and clearly state that it's information about the weather in 
Oaxaca, a forcast and a summary of the weather conditions.

The text I offered above, holds true for this resource.

Received on Monday, 28 February 2011 03:24:34 UTC