RE: exploring ambiguity via the "something-which-has" URI scheme

> >If there could not be incompatible assertions, then there could be
> >no disagreement, and I think the SW should allow folks to disagree
> >about the things that they are talking about in common.
> 
> You seem to be saying that people can disagree about facts but they 
> have to agree about the objects that the facts are 'about'. That's 
> not a viable distinction to make, though. If you allow them to 
> disagree, then one of the ways they can disagree is about what they 
> are talking about. 

Yes, yes. Of course. If they in fact do not agree about the objects
they are talking about then there is a total breakdown in communication.

And that's the *POINT* here.

And again, I'm not saying and have never said (and have re-re-re-reiterated
this several times) that folks *can't* do anything. Only that they *shouldn't*
and that if there is no evidence to the contrary one should *presume* that they
haven't.

Please re-read this a few times because you keep missing it every time I say it.

> >What is harmful to the SW is when folks make assertions which
> >appear to be about the same thing, but are not.
> 
> There is no way to do that on the SW or the Web. The assertions are 
> about whatever they turn out to be about when we have got enough of 
> them all together to try to pin down the referent, if we ever feel a 
> need to. Someone might have one thing in mind when they use a URI, 
> but what they actually *say* is whatever is said by using that URI. 
> What they have in mind doesn't get transmitted by HTTP, so it is kind 
> of irrelevant, seems to me. It has the same relationship to what 
> actually gets said as what you hoped the code would do has to what 
> the code actually does.

Sigh. I say "should", you read "must". I say "harmful", you read "fatal".

I give up. I'm going to stop spending time trying to speak a foreign
language and go write code that does something useful...

Patrick

Received on Wednesday, 14 May 2003 01:52:42 UTC