- From: Daniel W. Connolly <connolly@beach.w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 17:48:47 -0400
- To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- cc: yarong@microsoft.com, ejw@rome.ics.uci.edu, w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
In message <96Oct31.115252pdt."415911"@mule.parc.xerox.com>, Larry Masinter wri tes: >> A representation (or entity -- same thing) is immutable, the way >> integers and URLs are immutable. How many versions of the number >> 2 or the string "http://www.w3.org/" are there? > >Well, a 'representation' isn't exactly the 'same thing' as an entity. >We're working in an area where there aren't enough precise terms. > >It's very risky to try to make a 'plain logic' argument where we're >primarily having difficulty with definitions of terms. Fair enough. Let me make my context, or world-view clear. I've been working on this issue of terminology for years, and in my world-view, representation and entity mean exactly the same thing. I've written down their defintion, plus a whole lot of other definitions, at: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Architecture/Terms The document isn't in a completely consistent state, but many of the definitions there are relavent and could be useful. Because the terms 'representation' and 'entity' are somewhat overloaded and confused, I consider them synonyms of my preferred term, 'digital artifact': digital artifact some information represented as a sequence of octets (bytes) with an associated data format. aka document, entity, entity body, body part, representation In contrast, consider: document 1.a collection of resources that form a unit of information that can be visited. A document has an address. The document consists of the object at that address, plus some other objects connected to that object. aka Node in hypertext research literature. Also known as a frame (KMS), card (Hypercard, Notecards). Used with this special meaning in hypertext circles: do not confuse with "node" meaning "network host". 2.The object type with methods GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. 3.see: digital artifact (c.f. HTML spec, SGML spec) 4.see: resource resource an addressable unit of information or service in the Web. Examples include files, images, documents, programs, query results, etc. aka object. object By the way, as requested by Yaron, here's a definition for 'principal'. principal the source of some messages; for example: persons, computers, and programs. See: authentic authentic An authentic message is one that has been received as the sending principal intended. Related failures include: Corruption -- machine malfunction Forgery -- intentional modification Version skew (see also: replica) Dan
Received on Thursday, 31 October 1996 16:43:40 UTC