RE: flogging a dead horse

I got as far as the first few paragraphs:

[
If you use an HTTP URI as an identifier for something other than a web document (such as an abstract concept) then you can run into problems. The problems arise when there just happens to be a web document at the end of that same URI, which you find when you plug that URI into the address bar of your favourite browser.

The problem is that you can have one URI identifying two distinct things. Obviously a unique identifier isn't much good if it doesn't uniquely identify anything. 
]

But then stopped, because it seems your fundamental premise is false.

If you have a URI that identifies a concept, and dereferencing that URI in a 
browser results in some web page displayed in that browser, that does not
mean that the URI has been used to identify two things, the concept and
the web page (document).

Per your example, the URI identifies the concept, and the web page is merely
a representation of that concept, and if one wishes to refer distinctly
to the document (representation), one must use a distinct URI from that
identifying the concept.

There is no problem there.

Cheers,

Patrick


> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of ext Miles, AJ
> (Alistair)
> Sent: 14 November, 2004 04:09
> To: 'www-rdf-interest@w3.org'
> Subject: flogging a dead horse
> 
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I know I don't post here much, but I had some thoughts re the 
> 'identity
> crisis' and I wrote them up mostly because it's 1am and I 
> wanted to stop
> thinking about it and my girlfriend's gone to Disneyland 
> Paris without me.  
> 
> Read at leisure (i.e. make sure you're sitting down):
> 
> http://esw.w3.org/topic/SkosDev/IdentityCrisis
> 
> Al.
> 
> ---
> Alistair Miles
> Research Associate
> CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
> Building R1 Room 1.60
> Fermi Avenue
> Chilton
> Didcot
> Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
> United Kingdom
> Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440
> 
> 
>

Received on Sunday, 14 November 2004 16:42:18 UTC