RE: on documents and terms [was: RE: [WNET] new proposal WN URIs and related issues]

Hi Pat,

> From: Pat Hayes
> . . .
> >Because "information resources" can return different 
> >"representations" 
> >at different times (even if some happen to return the same 
> >representation every time), it seems to me that "information 
> >resources" are by their very nature abstract.
> 
> Why do you say they are abstract? I think I see 
> what you mean (and I think I agree), but 
> 'abstract' seems like entirely the wrong word to 
> use to characterize it.

Perhaps there is a better word.  I meant "abstract" in a plain English
sense, such as definition #1 at 
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=abstract or definition #1 at 
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=abstract .
However, in this discussion a more precise way to describe it is to say
that if an "information resource" can return different "representations"
at different times (even if some happen to return the same
"representation" every time), it seems to me that "information
resources" are by their very nature functions from time to data, as I
just argued to DanC[14].

[14]
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006May/0020.html

> 
> > Clearly the notion of an "information resource" is modeled after the

> > real life notion of the contents of a (logical) disk region, 
> > on a Web server, that is associated with a URI "racine".  (The 
> > "racine" is all 
> > of the URI except the fragment identifier.[11])  The server is 
> > configured to return those contents, whatever they are, when the URI

> > racine is dereferenced.  And those contents may change over time!  
> > Thus, the URI racine is not identifying any *particular* 
> > contents, it 
> > is identifying the logical *location* where those contents 
> > are stored, 
> > and the server provides whatever contents happen to be 
> > stored there at the moment they are requested.
> 
> OK, great. That all makes wonderful sense. What 
> does not make nearly so much sense, however, is 
> to go on to say that the the contents that happen 
> to be stored there are a "representation" of the 
> logical location.

I was using the term "representation" in the TAG's WebArch sense.  I
agree that the TAG's use of the term is peculiar.  As far as I can tell,
the content that happens to be stored there is by definition a
"representation" when it is served in response to an HTTP GET.

> 
> >In fact, it is not even possible on the Web to create a URI that is 
> >permanently bound to a single document instance that can 
> >never change: 
> >it is *always* possible to change the server configuration 
> >or domain IP 
> >mapping to cause a different document instance to be served. 
> >
> >In other 
> >words, an http URI on the real Web identifies a logical *location* 
> >whose content *always* has the potential of changing.  Similarly (I 
> >argue), an "information resource" is *necessarily* abstract. 
> >
> >Thus, if 
> >something is not abstract, then it cannot be an "information 
> resource".
> >
> > So returning to your comment about whether a word could be an 
> > "information resource", it depends on what you mean by 
> > "word".  If an 
> > alternate spelling of "color" is "colour", then we are 
> > referring to an 
> > abstract notion of a word, whose spelling may vary.
> 
> But that sense of 'abstract' is not the one you 
> have been using, right? Nothing here about time, 
> for example.

Yes, it was intended to be the same notion of "abstract": If "color" and
"colour" are alternate spellings of the same word, w, then we are
speaking of a concept of "word" that is a more abstract notion than
merely "a sequence of letters".  It is "abstract" in that it transcends
specific spellings, just as an "information resource" is "abstract" in
that it transcends specific representations.

Again, I apologize if my use of the word "abstract" was misleading.  I
think we can mostly avoid it.

David Booth

Received on Friday, 5 May 2006 04:17:53 UTC