LC Comments: 1.2.1, editorial

I *think*, after working through this, that these comments are 
editorial.

1.2.1

	"""Identification, interaction, and representation are orthogonal (or, 
"independent", or "loosely coupled") concepts: an identifier can be 
assigned without knowing what representations are available, agents can 
interact with any identifier, and representations can change without 
regard to the identifiers or interactions that may dereference them."""

"independent" and "loosely coupled", while not contradictory, do seem 
to be contrary. That is, to be loosely coupled is to be *less* 
independent than one might otherwise be.

Presumably the orthogonality in question is *conceptual* orthogonality, 
yet the "independence" is specified in terms of the behavior of various 
entities. To illustrate the confusion, consider that my mind might be 
conceptually independent of my brain, while being (given certain 
physicalistic theories), in fact, deeply dependent on my brain (say, 
causally).

Finally, each..well, what are they, examples?...seems not to 
demonstrate independance. That an identifier can be *assigned* without 
knowing what representations are available doesn't, for example,  mean 
that they can be *dereferences* without knowing about at least some of 
the representations that are available. That agents can interact with 
*any* identifier seems to indicate some deep relation between 
identifiers and interactions. (Unlike many things, agents can interact 
with *any* identifier. Thus, part of being an identifer is that agents 
can interact with it.) Similarly for the last, but I want to point out 
that representations aren't dereferenced. Identifiers are. 
Representations are what the server responds with.

This section sets out to relate orthogonal abstractions to orthogonal 
specifications. Fine, but it shouldn't *confuse* the two. For example:

""Orthogonality in specifications facilitates a flexible design that 
can evolve over time. The fact, for example, that the an image can be 
identified using a URI without needing any information about the 
representation of that image allowed PNG and SVG to evolve independent 
of the specifications that define image elements."""

Shouldn't that start with "orthogonality in *design*"?

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Received on Friday, 5 March 2004 13:02:09 UTC