Re: Status codes / IR vs. NIR -- 303 vs. 200

Hi Kingsley,

[...]
>> If I want an RDF/XML representation of the document, I can ask for
>>
>>       Accept: application/rdf+xml
>>
>> and Wikipedia would (ideally) return an RDF/XML representation of that
>> resource which tells me that John Lennon is a person who was born at
>> ... murdered at ... was part of a group named ... etc.
>>

> Yes, so you received a document stating all of the above, who is the 
> Subject? How is the Subject Identified?

I don't understand the question. A person named "John Lennon" is the
subject. The subject is identified by the IRI.

If I issue a

  GET <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon> Accept: application/x-tm+ctm

and the server responses with (using the Topic Maps syntax CTM since I
am not that familiar with RDF syntaxes):

  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon>
     isa ex:person;
     - "John Lennon";
     born-at 1940-10-09;
     died-at 1980-12-08;
     member-of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles>.

I'd know that the above mentioned IRI represents a NIR (a person)
which was born at .. died at .. etc.

Where is the problem with that approach?

[...]
> Have to drop the fact that your non-web-sign-processor (DNA CPU)
> already groks "John Lennon", and does a lot of fancy processing with 
> frames en route to disambiguation and context manifestation.

I don't understand that statement. A web agent would also know that
the IRI represents a person which has the name "John Lennon".

[...]
>> I see, DBpedia provides different IRIs. That's fine. But it's not
>> possible to keep<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon>  (or
>> <http://dbpedia.org/resource/John_Lennon>  if that matters) and make
>> statements about that, right? I cannot make statements which are
>> interpreted rightly without an Internet connection. I need the status
>> codes.
>>
>> [...]
>>> Personally, it can be solved at the application level by application
>>> developers making a decision about the source of semantic fidelity i.e
>>> HTTP or the Data itself.

Yes, it can be solved at application level. Maybe on a per domain
basis, but that's exactly the problem. Neither 303 nor 200 solves the
identity problem. Unless we'd introduce a concept to distinguish
between NIRs and IRs (like Topic Maps does with Subject Identifiers
and Subject Locators).

I'd tend to agree that 200 seems to be easier to handle than 303 (even
if it does not solve the identity problem either). And fragment IRIs
do not solve that problem either. It's just a problem shift, imo.

[...]
>> Side note: Each subject/object needs a GET (assuming that predicates
>> are always NIRs) to interpret the statement correctly... Does it
>> scale? Let's assume you'd send me a DBpedia dump. I cannot interpret
>> it correctly, unless I have an Internet connection?

> What about when I send you DBpedia in the post on a USB key ? :-)

I don't see how that statement contradicts my statement that I always
need an Internet connection. If you send me DBpedia offline, I need an
Internet connection if I want to import the stuff and want to
interpret the triples correctly if a 200 / 303 status code is
necessary to handle the IRIs right.

Best regards,
Lars
-- 
Semagia 
<http://www.semagia.com>

Received on Friday, 12 November 2010 12:20:08 UTC