Re: URI and Web Architecture Revisited

Xiaoshu, This is a beautiful synopsis of the problem - THANK YOU for  
taking the time to write it up as well as you did!  I will be using this  
in my lectures for sure!  :-)

What made me chuckle was how similar the DFDF concept is to the LSID  
concept... except that the LSID doesn't rely on any HTTP response codes to  
determine what is what (it's all explicit, since there is no way to ask a  
URI what it is but to query the metadata; and there is no concept of  
content-negotiation in LSIDs since all various representations should be  
referred to explicitly in the metadata... so there are no shortcuts to  
getting the representation that you desire)

Given that we have millions (billions?) of URLs out there in the world,  
isn't it a bit optimistic to assume that they will all suddenly become  
adherent to whatever we decide here?

Personally, I am inclined to place my trust in a Semantic Web where I know  
that the URIs I encounter are guarateed to have the behaviour that I  
expect.  If I can't guarantee that from a URL (and I know that I can't),  
then I can at least code my software to be more trusting of other kinds of  
URIs... and non-trusting of URLs...

...na?

M




On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:51:17 -0800, Xiaoshu Wang <wangxiao@musc.edu> wrote:

>
> I have written down my thoughts on the URI's identity issue and some web  
> architecture issues at "http://dfdf.inesc-id.pt/tr/web-arch".  The  
> writing mostly starts from the issue of "information resource" and  
> httpRange-14 but touched on how we are suppose to view the web  
> architecture.
>
> I think that I had contributed a great deal to bring the issue of  
> "information resource and 303" to this mailing list.  But now I think  
> back, my understanding in the past appeared to be wrong.  Hopefully,  
> from this position paper, you may understand why I have changed my  
> thinking so it may help you to understand the topic as well.
>
> Xiaoshu    
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 14 November 2007 05:09:45 UTC