Re: Resources always exist

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Paul Prescod wrote:

>
> Roy Fielding wrote:
> >
> > The mapping is the resource and the resource always exists, which is
> > is why 404 Not Found does not imply that the resource does not exist,
> > but rather says that no current representation of the resource exists
> > at the time of the request.
>
> But the HTTP spec says:
>
>  > The DELETE method requests that the origin server delete the resource
>  > identified by the Request-URI.
>
> What does "delete the resource" mean if resources always exist? Should
> DELETE be understood to clear the mapping from resources to representations?

This has always puzzled me. From an RDF perspective, where we say little
more than 'URIs are names' it is often easier (esp. for the logicians) to
take the perspective that there are no 'dangling URIs' that name nothing;
and that 404 and DELETE correspond to a lack of information about the
named thing, rather than to the named thing not existing at all. If the
consensus here is that there are some URIs that denote nothing, we ought
to take that message back to the RDF groups.

Dan


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Received on Thursday, 12 September 2002 15:51:20 UTC