Re: story or not?

hello elf.

On 2015-02-15 13:42, ☮ elf Pavlik ☮ wrote:
> On 02/12/2015 05:55 PM, Erik Wilde wrote:
>> i do understand that i can explicitly "cast" activities to possibly
>> multiple types with constructs such as:
>> "@type": ["Like", "Floop", "Respond"]
>> but that to me (and to other people, i would assume) then looks as if i
>> MUST do this explicit casting if i want the vocabulary's type hierarchy
>> to be reliably represented in my activities.
>> i am fine doing this if AS2 tells me to do it. what i think is not so
>> great is that if i *don't* do it and simply use a single type, then some
>> consumers will still interpret this as meaning the above, and some
>> don't.
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-activitystreams-core-20150129/#fig-an-object-that-is-both-a-place-and-a-gr-location
>
> Would you like to create a pull request which adds such explicit *MUST*?

i don't think that would be appropriate. and it still would need 
clarification and a processing model to explain how it works.

for example, if we say the entire vocabulary class hierarchy MUST be 
serialized into AS, then what does it mean when an AS object still only 
claims it is a "Floop"? does it have to be discarded? or is it only a 
subclass of the virtual überclass "Activity"?

or what if a "Floop" says it is a "Like", but does not say it is a 
"Respond"? does it have to be discarded?

> I see no problem with taking this path in AS2.0 spec and when reasoning
> tools get more reasonable we will already have straight forward path to
> drop this *MUST* in next one of next iterations.

this is not how standards work. if you make AS2 independent of 
reasoning, then this is how it will be. if you make reasoning mandatory, 
then you break every single implementation out there that is not doing 
it. you could make it mandatory in AS3, but that would be an entirely 
different thing from AS2, because it would behave very differently.

i have to admit that i am a bit surprised that nobody seems to have 
questions or issues about this. for our decentralized model, it is 
essential that AS is well-defined, and currently, it is not, at least 
not for this issue of how vocabulary hierarchy is serialized and processed.

if, as james said, the current idea is that using the class hierarchy is 
optional, then we definitely have to model around that and make the 
processing model more robust in our vocabulary models. i would see that 
as very unfortunate, since a lot of the intended expressivity ('give me 
all "Respond" and i can trust you that you will give me "Like" as well') 
then is not something AS users can depend on. and i am still wondering 
why the hierarchy then even is part of the normative spec. we then could 
go back to AS1's flat model (which in my mind would be a helpful step 
forward anyway), because that's what we essentially have.

cheers,

dret.

-- 
erik wilde | mailto:dret@berkeley.edu  -  tel:+1-510-2061079 |
            | UC Berkeley  -  School of Information (ISchool) |
            | http://dret.net/netdret http://twitter.com/dret |

Received on Monday, 16 February 2015 02:21:41 UTC