Re: Query forms should be resources, not operations

On Mon, Sep 05, 2005 at 02:20:33PM -0400, Mark Baker wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I assume you won't mind that I've CCd www-archive...

No, I should have. Forgot.

> I don't see that.  They may know which URL to POST to by discovering
> descriptive information about that resource at the time they discover
> the URL.  For example, they might learn about the URL via a triple like;
> 
> But they needn't even do that, since the application might just drive
> them there, as would be the case with the use of XForms I described.

Sure, that *may* happen, but it may not, too. In which case the reasonable
client design (near as I can tell) is to sniff or parse the query itself to
determine which kind of resource it should be routed to. That's ugly, IMO.
It's especially ugly since the part of the query string itself that dictates
what kind of query form it is would be duplicative information, since the
URI contains it.

> > We discussed yr design and, as I recall, no one on the WG was motivated by
> > its properties. And we discussed a design similar to yrs a few months back,
> > arising from some ideas Dan Connolly had.
> 
> I wasn't aware of that.  Pointers?

I can't seem to find it; maybe Dan can?

> FWIW, if it wasn't clear, I consider this a Web architecture issue; that
> the protocol hides four different resources behind a single URI and so
> is counter to the advice of TAG's webarch doc when it says;
> 
> "Assign distinct URIs to distinct resources."

No, you've been clear that you consider it a webarch issue; I trust I've
been equally clear that I don't, personally, buy that reading of the webarch
doc. In this space, we've decided that *the* significant resource is a
"query processing service". Others, like you, may carve up the space
differently. But there's *nothing* in webarch that gives any weight to
either design. In both cases we "give the most significant resources URIs"
-- it's just that we disagree about what the most significant resources
*are*. I honestly don't believe that appeals to webarch help here *at all*.

Again, speaking for myself, not DAWG here -- stay tuned for another DAWG
response, I suspect.

Cheers, 
Kendall

Received on Tuesday, 6 September 2005 01:59:01 UTC