[closed] Re: Request for Review of TAG AWWW 2nd LC Draft.

Hello Pat,

> No, it does not alter my earlier acceptance as an adequate response. 
> It is a step forward to have the distinction made this clearly. Thanks.
>
> Pat


Thanks.... this is just a final note closing this thread for the puposes 
of comment tracking [1]

Stuart
--
[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2004lc/lc-status-report.html

Pat Hayes wrote:

>> Hello Pat,
>>
>> In response to a comment from Patrick Stickler [1] and the ensuring 
>> discussion of proposals to revise the definition of Information 
>> Resources given in the 2nd last-call draft, the TAG reached concensus 
>> on a revised definition of the term Information Resource. The revised 
>> definition now appears in-line in section "2.2 URI/Resource 
>> Relationship" [2 ] rather than by forward reference to section 3.1. 
>> The revised definition is quoted below.
>>
>> <quote>
>> 2.2. URI/Resource Relationships
>>
>> By design a URI identifies one resource. We do not limit the scope of 
>> what might be a resource. The term "resource" is used in a general 
>> sense for whatever might be identified by a URI. It is conventional 
>> on the hypertext web to describe web pages, images, product catalogs, 
>> etc. as ³resources². The distinguishing characteristic of these 
>> resources is that all of their essential characteristics can be 
>> conveyed in a message. We identify this set as ³information resources².
>>
>> This document is an example of an information resource. It consists 
>> of words and punctuation symbols and graphics and other artifacts 
>> that can be encoded, with varying degrees of fidelity, into a 
>> sequence of bits. There is nothing about the essential information 
>> content of this document that cannot in principle be transfered in a 
>> representation.
>>
>> However, our use of the term resource is intentionally more broad. 
>> Other things, such as cars and dogs (and, if you¹ve printed this 
>> document on physical sheets of paper, the artifact that you are 
>> holding in your hand), are resources too. They are not information 
>> resources, however, because their essence is not information. 
>> Although it is possible to describe a great many things about a car 
>> or a dog in a sequence of bits, the sum of those things will 
>> invariably be an approximation of the essential character of the 
>> resource.
>>
>> We define the term ³information resource² because we observe that it 
>> is useful in discussions of web technology and may be useful in 
>> constructing specifications for facilities built for use on the web.
>> </quote>
>>
>> Given your response below, please can you indicate whether this 
>> revised definition alters your "acceptance" of our previous changes 
>> as "an adequate response to [your] original objection." If possible 
>> we would appreciate an indication from you before our next telcon on 
>> 18th October.
>
>
> No, it does not alter my earlier acceptance as an adequate response. 
> It is a step forward to have the distinction made this clearly. Thanks.
>
> Pat
>
>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Stuart Williams
>> On behalf of W3C TAG
>> -- 
>> [1] 
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webarch-comments/2004JulSep/0047.html 
>>
>> [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/webarch/#id-resources
>>
>> Stuart Williams wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> At Pats request I am fowarding the content of a message I received 
>>> from him in response to my request that he review our 2nd LC WD.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>>
>>> Stuart
>>> -- 
>>> ----Original Message-----
>>> From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@ihmc.us]
>>> Sent: 28 September 2004 21:50
>>> To: Williams, Stuart (HP Labs, Bristol)
>>> Subject: Re: Request for Review of TAG AWWW 2nd LC Draft.
>>>
>>> Stuart, greetings and apologies for the lateness of this reply. (I 
>>> could plead mitigating circumstances, but I was already late when 
>>> Ivan came.) I know time is tight and I have no right to hold things 
>>> up any longer. Although I am still not entirely happy, for W3C 
>>> procedural purposes you may register my acceptance of this as an 
>>> adequate response to my original objection. Stop reading at this 
>>> point if you like.
>>>
>>> The document is greatly improved and I can now understand it 
>>> coherently, and I appreciate the work that must have gone into 
>>> getting it into this state. However, it is still ambiguous in a few 
>>> places, most notably in sections 2.2 (which is blatantly circular 
>>> and misuses terminology in confusing ways) . In particular, the 
>>> sections you cite in your message seem to indicate that you intend 
>>> the unqualified use of the word 'resource' to be the wide sense (my 
>>> 'D' in the C/D contrast, i.e. anything that may be referred to), 
>>> whereas the bulk of the text in the document seems to imply rather 
>>> clearly that you have in mind the narrower C sense, in particular 
>>> where the text remarks or presumes without explicit comment that 
>>> resources have states and can be accessed by Web protocols. Section 
>>> 2.2.3 seems to be a sketch/draft of a way to resolve this tension 
>>> quite nicely, but the idea is not developed.
>>>
>>> The central example has been re-worded very nicely to make its 
>>> meaning clear (the resource is the on-line weather report) but it is 
>>> still not clear if the analogous alternative example, where the 
>>> resource would be the actual weather, would be a valid example: 
>>> certainly the quote from section 2.2 seems to suggest this; but much 
>>> of the rest of the discussion in the text seems inconsistent with it.
>>>
>>> The remark that this document is not intended to cover all SWeb uses 
>>> is very helpful, and I think was a wise insertion, and the 
>>> clarification of the meaning of 'representation' is good.
>>>
>>> Rather than produce another vast email, I have annotated the text 
>>> with comments drawing attention to the places where this ambiguity 
>>> seems to still arise, and making a few other comments, most of them 
>>> reiterations of points I made when commenting on the earlier draft. 
>>> The result is at
>>>
>>> http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes/2004-PatHayesComments.html
>>>
>>> in case it might be useful.
>>>
>>> Pat
>>>
>>> A few editorial matters you might want to check:
>>>
>>> In Sec 2.3 'URI' is used as a plural, elsewhere 'URIs' is used.
>>>
>>> Section 2.6 talks of 'some view on representations' What does this 
>>> mean?
>>>
>>> Section 3.3.1, second paragraph seems to have some elision at the 
>>> end (may be only a missing period)
>>>
>>> Is an interaction unsafe if the agent is AT RISK of incurring an 
>>> obligation, or only in the case where the obligation is in fact 
>>> incurred? The glossary implies the latter but I think the former is 
>>> intended.
>>>
>>>> Pat,
>>>>
>>>> The TAG has been working to address some of the concerns that you 
>>>> raised in
>>>> [1] in response to our 1st last call on the the AWWW document [2].
>>>>
>>>> In particular, we now explicitly state that "We do not limit the 
>>>> scope of
>>>> what might be a resource", and we introduce a term for the class of
>>>> resources that can be interacted with via an exchange of 
>>>> representations -
>>>> "information resources". This is an attempt to resolve the 'C'/'D' 
>>>> sense
>>>> ambiguities in the use of terms that you identify.
>>>>
>>>> A couple of extracts from the now 2nd LC draft [2] below.
>>>>
>>>> We would appreciate your review of this draft and an indication of 
>>>> whether
>>>> you feel we have addressed the comments you made in [1].
>>>>
>>>> Best regards
>>>>
>>>> Stuart Williams
>>>> On Behalf of W3C TAG
>>>> -- 
>>>> [1]
>>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webarch-comments/2004JanMar/1057. 
>>>>
>>>> html
>>>> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031209/
>>>> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-webarch-20040816/
>>>>
>>>> "2.2. URI/Resource Relationships
>>>>
>>>> By design a URI identifies one resource. We do not limit the scope 
>>>> of what
>>>> might be a resource. The term "resource" is used in a general sense 
>>>> for
>>>> whatever might be identified by a URI. A significant class of 
>>>> resources,
>>>> information resources, are discussed in Information Resources and
>>>> Representations [section 3.1]."
>>>>
>>>> and
>>>> "3.1. Information Resources and Representations
>>>> The term Information Resource refers to resources that convey 
>>>> information.
>>>> Any resource that has a representation is an information resource. A
>>>> representation consists logically of two parts: data (expressed in 
>>>> one or
>>>> more formats used separately or in combination) and metadata (such 
>>>> as the
>>>> Internet media type of the data)."
>>>
>
>

Received on Monday, 11 October 2004 16:04:36 UTC