Re: Explaining the benefits of http-range14 (was Re: [HTTP-range-14] Hyperthing: Semantic Web URI Validator (303, 301, 302, 307 and hash URIs) )

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Leigh Dodds <leigh.dodds@talis.com> wrote:
> So, can we turn things on their head a little. Instead of starting out
> from a position that we *must* have two different resources, can we
> instead highlight to people the *benefits* of having different
> identifiers? That makes it more of a best practice discussion and one
> based on trade-offs: e.g. this class of software won't be able to
> process your data correctly, or you'll be limited in how you can
> publish additional data or metadata in the future.
>
> I don't think I've seen anyone approach things from that perspective,
> but I can't help but think it'll be more compelling. And it also has
> the benefits of not telling people that they're right or wrong, but
> just illustrate what trade-offs they are making.

I agree Leigh. The argument that you can't deliver an entity like a
Galaxy to someone's browser sounds increasingly hollow to me. Nobody
really expects that, and the concept of a Representation from
WebArch/REST explains it away to most technical people. Plus, we now
have examples in the wild like OpenGraphProtocol that seem to be
delivering drinks, politicians, hotels, etc to machine agents at
Facebook just fine.

But there does seem to be a valid design pattern, or even refactoring
pattern, in httpRange-14 that is worth documenting. Perhaps a good
place would be http://patterns.dataincubator.org/book/? I think
positioning httpRange-14 as a MUST instead of a SHOULD or MAY made a
lot of sense to get the LOD experiment rolling. It got me personally
thinking about the issue of identity in a practical way as I built web
applications, that I probably wouldn't otherwise have otherwise done.
But it would've been easier if grappling with it was optional, and
there were practical examples of where it is useful, instead of having
it be an issue of dogma.

//Ed

Received on Thursday, 20 October 2011 12:25:42 UTC