Review of Web Architecture doc - WD-webarch-20031209

I've completed and written up my review of the web architecture 
document.  Most of my comments are not specific to RDFcore concerns, so I 
don't think it's appropriate to have the WG look at all of them, but the 
full review can be seen at:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2004Jan/0105.html

In this message, I'm selecting those comments that I think may have some 
relevance to RDFcore concerns.  Any comments that are deemed not relevant 
to RDFcore concerns I'll send later in my own name.

-------------

Reviewing:
   http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031209/
Modified: 08 December 2003 22:07:31

...

Section 3.4:
[[
Successful communication between two parties using a piece of information 
relies on shared understanding of the meaning of the information. Arbitrary 
numbers of independent parties can identify and communicate about a Web 
resource. To give these parties the confidence that they are all talking 
about the same thing when they refer to "the resource identified by the 
following URI ..." the design choice for the Web is, in general, that the 
owner of a resource assigns the authoritative interpretation of 
representations of the resource.
]]
I recall that TimBL and Pat Hayes had a lengthy debate about something 
rather like this
Thread starting:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0022.html
with some indication of consensus around:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0316.html
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0344.html

I am not sure that the above text really captures the subtlety of this 
discussion.  As Pat Hayes noted:
[[
 >Note though that other non-RDF systems may and do use URIs.  So the
 >principle can must be a general one of web architecture.

Names are global in scope.  OK, though (in the other branch of the
discussion) I don't think this is going to be feasible, myself, if
taken strictly. Still, I agree, its not a bad place to start, as long
as we understand that we will eventually have to replace it with
something more sophisticated.
]]
-- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0344.html

[significant/editorial]

...

Section 3.6.2:

I made a note to myself at the end of this section:
"Maye add a comment about metadata consistency and problems that may occur 
of a resource is not persistent"
but now I not sure what it is I meant by this.

I think I may have been thinking about a case where RDF is used to describe 
some resource, but the resource whose representation is served at a given 
URI is allowed to change over time.  Then, any RDF that uses said URI to 
describe the resource at some point in time becomes completely incorrect if 
the  URI is assigned to a different resource.  Is it worth trying to make a 
point that the value of RDF descriptions depends to a considerable extent 
on the stability/persistence of the URIs used?

[Significant?]

...

[I left this one in for its possible relationship with the text point]

Section 4.2.4:
[[
RDF allows well-defined mixing of vocabularies, and allows text and XML to 
be used as a data type values within a statement having clearly defined 
semantics.
]]

I couldn't figure precisely what this was trying to say.

[editorial]

...

Section 4.2.4:
[[
Note however, that for general XML there is no semantic model that defines 
the interactions within XML documents with elements and/or attributes from 
a variety of namespaces. Each application must define how namespaces 
interact and what effect the namespace of an element has on the element's 
ancestors, siblings, and descendants.
]]

I think that there may be an important point to be made here about the 
relationship of the "Semantic Web" with what I might call the "Hypertext 
Web" upon which it is built, that the "Semantic Web" provides a 
well-defined way to combine statements that draw upon an arbitrary number 
of different namespaces.  (I regard this as one of the more important 
contributions of the Semantic Web.)

Maybe this is what the subject of my previous comment was trying to say?

[significant]

...

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
For email:
http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 2004 12:32:23 UTC