superimposing the Fielding and TBL architectures

Mulling over designs for httpRange-14(a) opt-in, I made a picture
(attached), just for fun, that superimposes the Fielding/3986
architecture with the TimBL architecture.

What stands out is the common ground: There is general agreement on
what constitutes a correct retrieval operation using a URI. The
agreement derives from the RFCs and from server and client behavior.
This is invariant as we modulate theories of what the resource is and
what "is a representation of" means.

In the Fielding architecture the resource is unconstrained. I can give
you a bunch of different resources, and then when you challenge me to
prove that there is a resource with those Fielding-representations, I
can cook up any story I like, post hoc, and you'd have no way to prove
me wrong.

In Tim's architecture the resource is determined, modulo usually we
probably don't care about, by what the correct retrieval results would
be. Once those results are determined, there's no choice as to what
the resource is. Contrariwise, if the server side commits to what the
resource is, we can hold them to it by checking any
TBL-representations that they deliver.

httpRange-14(a) opt-in would be a statement or protocol element that
says that the URI Fielding-identifies the generic resource (i.e. the
same thing that it TBL-identifies).

Nothing much new here, pretty much what Pat has said in different
words (although I put less stock in "access" and more in social
agreement over what would constitute correct access were it to occur).
Just noodling.

Jonathan

Received on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 16:02:32 UTC