Re: the state of ldp-patch, and a procedural proposal

hello kingsley.

On 2013-10-03 13:29 , "Kingsley Idehen" <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
>A URI denotes.
>An HTTP URI denotes and locates.

maybe. if it is deferencable, then it locates, otherwise it doesn't.
some/most HTTP URIs are dereferencable, some are not, and that's perfectly
fine, too. simply put, URIs are just identifiers, URIs by themselves are
never "links". depending on where they are used, they may *also* be
actionable links. but you cannot tell by looking at them. you can only
tell by their context.

>If the interpretation in question has nothing to do with RDF based
>Linked Data, it still doesn't change the fundamental fact that URIs
>(irrespective of scheme) denote entities (things).

not sure why you seem to really dislike calling the identified
entity/thing a "resource", thereby using the terminology of the URI
standard itself. but yes, URIs identify resources/entities/things, and
when used in a context where they are used as links, they better be
dereferencable or you have a problem.

>>personally, i never really liked that part of web architecture very much,
>> because it means that if you do things such as content negotiation, it
>>is
>> your responsibility to make sure that fragment identifiers work
>> consistently across supported media types.
>I read it differently, and I find it a great showcase for architectural
>dexterity .
>> which is doable, but just feels
>> a bit strange. i think there's a lot of history to why this is how it
>>is,
>> and starting from scratch this part of web architecture could be
>>designed
>> a little bit better now, but that's mostly an interesting thought
>> experiment. the main point to keep in mind is: fragment identifier
>> semantics are not defined by URIs or URI schemes, they are defined by
>> media types.
>Nothing to do with media types, nothing at all. URIs are the denotation
>mechanism that sit at the core of AWWW.

RFC 3986: "The semantics of a fragment identifier are defined by the set
of representations that might result from a retrieval action on the
primary resource.  The fragment's format and resolution is therefore
dependent on the media type of a potentially retrieved representation,
even though such a retrieval is only performed if the URI is dereferenced.
 If no such representation exists, then the semantics of the fragment are
considered unknown and are effectively unconstrained."

- if you use URIs as identifiers, fragment identifier semantics are
unknown/unconstrained.

- if you use URIs as links, fragment identifier semantics depend on the
media type(s).

cheers,

dret.

Received on Thursday, 3 October 2013 21:04:40 UTC