Re: We don't need no stinkin' identity

On Tue, 2003-04-22 at 04:07, Miles Sabin wrote:
> <snip>
>
> So rather than trying to work out and agree on what "identity" really 
> means, why don't we just learn to live with the mutually recursive 
> definitions? Mutual recursion isn't likely to be an alien concept to 
> anyone who's ever going to read RFC 2396 bis, so it seems like a 
> relatively easy option.
> 
> The only thing that might seem awkward is the absence of base cases for 
> the recursion. But that's actually a bonus, because it leaves room for 
> different constituencies to restrict the definitions in ways 
> appropriate to their interests. The RDF folks can treat "Resource" as 
> equivalent to "entity" or "thing"; the REST folks can treat "Resource" 
> as a repository of network application state; I can treat "Resource" as 
> being equivalent to "process"; and people with other ideas can do their 
> thing too. Let a hundred flowers bloom.
> 
> In effect we'd be saying that the circular definitions of Resource and 
> URI are schematic: they'd be a constraint on any acceptable fully 
> grounded definitions, but wouldn't dictate _precisely_ how those those 
> definitions should be grounded in any particular domain. That seems 
> like a reasonable and achievable goal for an IETF specification.

I've been suggesting a less well stated version of this so I'm all for
this approach...

-MM

Received on Tuesday, 22 April 2003 09:49:16 UTC