- From: <bugzilla@wiggum.w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:07:59 +0000
- To: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8264 Summary: Fix terminology for "resource", "representation", "retrieval" Product: HTML WG Version: unspecified Platform: All OS/Version: All Status: NEW Severity: major Priority: P1 Component: HTML5 spec proposals AssignedTo: dave.null@w3.org ReportedBy: masinter@adobe.com QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org CC: ian@hixie.ch, mike@w3.org, public-html@w3.org To understand the web, a reader will need to be familiar with other documents which establish terminology that this specification disagrees with. The documents describing URIs and HTTP are not just "authoritative documents", they're the actual documents that are also necessary to read and understand how the web works. Defining and using different and inconsistent terminology is very confusing, and leads to the specification being unclear about essential processes. The result is also at odds with reality (since some resources have no representation and content-negotiated resources may have many). RFC 3986 section 1.2.2 gives an overview of the relationship between "resource" and "representation" as well as "retrieval". When URIs are used within information retrieval systems to identify sources of information, the most common form of URI dereference is "retrieval": making use of a URI in order to retrieve a representation of its associated resource. A "representation" is a sequence of octets, along with representation metadata describing those octets, that constitutes a record of the state of the resource at the time when the representation is generated. Retrieval is achieved by a process that might include using the URI as a cache key to check for a locally cached representation, resolution of the URI to determine an appropriate access mechanism (if any), and dereference of the URI for the sake of applying a retrieval operation. Depending on the protocols used to perform the retrieval, additional information might be supplied about the resource (resource metadata) and its relation to other resources. This terminology is used and expanded in http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging. CHANGE PROPOSAL: The editorial changes are, unfortunately, extensive, and will require looking at every use of "resource" and "file", as well as "fetch" and "fetching". To start with section 2.1, "resources", change this to reference RFC 3986 and define "resources, representations, and retrieval". Align the definitions with the HTTP specification. (there are other definitions which also need alignment, including MIME type, content type; do those need separate bug reports?) -- Configure bugmail: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are the QA contact for the bug.
Received on Wednesday, 11 November 2009 21:08:08 UTC