Direct access to resource metadata

carmen r wrote (in
<http://www.w3.org/mid/20080725021925.GB5219@m.hsd1.ma.comcast.net>)
something like:

> say you GET some /a.jpg and additionally you want to return RDF about 
> this image (tags, geodata, comments, distillations from EXIF). 
> i asked about a GETMETA and was told “that’s synonymous with HEAD”. 
> that’s only true if your RDF/metadata is all in the header.

I think that you would appreciate Patrick Stickler’s “MGET” method, 
which, in addition to being tantamount to “GETMETA”, has an 
implementation in Nokia Research Center’s open‐source URIQA Semantic Web 
Server (<http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/sws-uriqa/index.html>). 
URIQA SWS also implements “MGET” cohorts “MPUT” and “MDELETE” (all of 
which have definitions at <http://sw.nokia.com/uriqa/URIQA.html>).

You might want to read the discussions in which people object to Patrick 
Stickler’s approach. Start with 
<http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/advanced_search?keywords=MGET&hdr-2-name=from&hdr-2-query=Patrick+Stickler&index-type=g&index-grp=Public__FULL&resultsperpage=1024&sortby=date-asc>

> so there is a Link/N3 header proposed. that feels kinda nasty to me. 
> i’d rather use RDF to express all the headers (gaining flexibility, 
> and eliminating the need for this hack) than embed RDF inside a 
> particular field (which has the bonus of backwards compatibility 
> with unmaintained UAs).

Do you propose the duplication of HTTP header-fields in some RDF
expression? If so, why duplicate? Do you propose replacing HTTP
header-fields with some RDF expression? If so, how do you propose to
deploy this change without breaking significant chunks of the Web? And
what, specifically, has the bonus of backward compatibility with
unmaintained user agents?

> what about “multipart/mixed” reponses?

Responses of type “multipart/related” would be more appropriate.

> does anyone have a preference for one technique over the other?

You seem, in that last question, to have in mind just two techniques. 
The rest of your message touched on more than two techniques. It would 
help me, at least, if you would explain which techniques you were 
implicitly contrasting when writing the question.

-- 
Please do not include my address in public replies. I’ll be reading 
public replies through the list.

Received on Friday, 25 July 2008 23:20:17 UTC