- From: David Wood <dwood@softwarememetics.com>
- Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:06:30 -0400
- To: "Booth, David (HP Software - Boston)" <dbooth@hp.com>
- Cc: "Pat Hayes" <phayes@ihmc.us>, <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>, "Guus Schreiber" <guus@few.vu.nl>, "Steve Pepper" <pepper@ontopia.net>, "Mark van Assem" <mark@cs.vu.nl>, "Ralph R. Swick" <swick@w3.org>
Hi all, This message contains my /personal/ opinions on this discussion. On 20 Apr2006, at 17:40, Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) wrote: >> From: Pat Hayes >> >> It might be best to start with a definition of what you consider an >> information resource to be. Since the TAG do not define this critical >> term, yet base important engineering decisions on it, any >> authoritative exposition would be of immense value. My current >> understanding is that an information resource is some thing that can >> be transmitted over a network by a transfer protocol. On this >> understanding, one could argue that a word was an information >> resource. > > Definitely not. That would be a "representation", not an "information > resource". The information resource is the *source* of > "representations" that can be transmitted over a network. > > I have also been struggling with trying to guess what the TAG meant an > "information resource" to be, or more notably, what the TAG meant > it to > exclude. FWIW, here is my proposed working definition of the day: > > An information resource is all and only a logical HTTP > endpoint that is intended to serve representations with > a 2xx response code. > > Note that: > > - If something is never intended to return a 2xx response > code then it is not an information resource. I see no evidence whatsoever that the relationship between a 2xx response and an information resource was intended to be defined as commutative (or inverse functional) by [8]. > - It is "logical", not physical. > > - It is "all and only" because it does NOT include anything > else that might be attached to that information resource. > > By this definition, a resource that is an "information resource" > cannot > also be any other kind of resource. This means, for example, that an > information resource cannot also be a person or Dan's car. > However, it > could be a part of Dan's car, or it could be associated with a person. > >> . . . >>> To be specific, [8] tells us that the URIs we choose for each of the >>> WordNet synsets, word senses, and words MUST be served with >>> a 303 See Other response. >> >> [8] does not use the word MUST, and again, I suggest that it would be >> a serious, indeed disastrous, error, to interpret it this strongly. > > I think you're quibbling here. The difference between RFC2119 terms > "SHOULD" and "MUST" is that "SHOULD" permits exceptions to a general > rule in particular circumstances, whereas "MUST" does not. But you > seem > to be arguing against the general rule -- not for an exception. I do not think that Pat was quibbling at all. Perhaps he comments are worth another read. Please note that a 303 response may be returned for any kind of resource, including information resources. Regards, Dave -- http://prototypo.blogspot.com
Received on Thursday, 20 April 2006 22:06:41 UTC