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 21/10/2011 08:09, Leigh Dodds wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 20 October 2011 23:19, Kingsley Idehen<kidehen@openlinksw.com>  wrote:
>> On 10/20/11 5:31 PM, Dave Reynolds wrote:
>>>
>>> What's more I really don't think the issues is about not understanding
>>> about the distinction (at least in the clear cut cases). Most people I
>>> talk to grok the distinction, the hard bit is understanding why 303
>>> redirects is a sensible way of making it and caring about it enough to
>>> put those in place.
>>
>> What about separating the concept of "indirection" from its actual
>> mechanics? Thus, conversations about benefits will then have the freedom to
>> blossom.
>>
>> Here's a short list of immediately obvious benefits re. Linked Data (at any
>> scale):
>>
>> 1. access to data via data source names -- millions of developers world wide
>> already do this with ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE DB etc.. the only issue is
>> that they are confined to relational database access and all its
>> shortcomings
>>
>> 2. integration of heterogeneous data sources -- the ability to coherently
>> source and merge disparately shaped data culled from a myriad of data
>> sources (e.g. blogs, wikis, calendars, social media spaces and networks, and
>> anything else that's accessible by name or address reference on a network)
>>
>> 3. crawling and indexing across heterogeneous data sources -- where the end
>> product is persistence to a graph model database or store that supports
>> declarative query language access via SPARQL (or even better a combination
>> of SPARQL and SQL)
>>
>> 4. etc...
>>
>> Why is all of this important?
>> Data access, integration, and management has been a problem that's straddled
>> every stage of computer industry evolution. Managers and end-users always
>> think about data conceptually, but continue to be forced to deal with
>> access, integration, and management in application logic oriented ways. In a
>> nutshell, applications have been silo vectors forever, and in doing so they
>> stunt the true potential of computing which (IMHO) is ultimately about our
>> collective quests for improved productivity.
>>
>> No matter what we do, there are only 24 hrs in a day. Most humans taper out
>> at 5-6 hrs before physiological system faults kick in, hence our implicit
>> dependency of computers for handling voluminous and repetitive tasks.
>>
>> Are we there yet?
>> Much closer that most imagine. Our biggest hurdle (as a community of Linked
>> Data oriented professionals) is a protracted struggle re. separating
>> concepts from implementation details. We burn too much time fighting
>> implementation details oriented battles at the expense of grasping core
>> concepts.
>
> Maybe I'm wrong but I think people, especially on this list,
> understanding the overall benefits you itemize. The reason we talk
> about implementation details is they're important to help people adopt
> the technology: we need specific examples.
>
> We get the benefits you describe from inter-linked dereferenceable
> URIs, regardless of what format or technology we use to achieve it.
> Using the RDF model brings additional benefits.
>
> What I'm trying to draw out in this particular thread is specific
> benefits the #/303 additional abstraction brings.

+1 that's how I read it

> At the moment, they
> seem pretty small in comparison to the fantastic benefits we get from
> data integrated into the web.

+1

Dave

Received on Friday, 21 October 2011 07:50:15 UTC