RE: WebArch Ambiguity about Objects, PLUS Suggested Major Replacement

What "impasse" are you referring to?  It decided that the range of "http:"
URIs is for more than documents.  

Cheers,
Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> Dare Obasanjo
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:49 PM
> To: Sandro Hawke; Mark Baker
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: RE: WebArch Ambiguity about Objects, PLUS Suggested Major
> Replacement
> 
> 
> 
> Sandro, 
>   I believe the TAG has had this same discussion in the past 
> and reached an impasse. Take a look at 
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/ilist#httpRange-14 , I agree with 
> your point but one can only take so much of the "A URI is 
> something that identifies a resource and  a resource is 
> anything identified by a URI" tautology before deciding to 
> sit out the discussion.  
>  
> I agree with Mark that this seems like more of the 
> httpRange-14 discussion from a slightly different angle.
> 
>  -----Original Message----- 
>  From: Sandro Hawke [mailto:sandro@w3.org] 
>  Sent: Mon 12/30/2002 6:02 PM 
>  To: Mark Baker 
>  Cc: www-tag@w3.org 
>  Subject: Re: WebArch Ambiguity about Objects, PLUS 
> Suggested Major Replacement 
>  
>  
> 
> 
> 
>  > >   The owners of Mark Baker SHOULD make available 
> representations
>  > >   that describe his nature and purpose.
>  > >
>  > > Obviously, Mark Baker doesn't have an owner, so 
> this is nonsense.
>  >
>  > No, it seems fine to me.  I own me.
>  
>  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Clearly no one owns the sun and moon, the
>  English language, the weather in Los Angeles, or the 
> latest events in
>  the world of technology.  When people talk about each 
> resource having
>  an owner, obviously they are thinking of a limitted set 
> of possible
>  resources.  I believe they are usually thinking about 
> knowledge bases
>  / web pages / web sites / documents / whatever you want 
> the call the
>  maintained collections of information that HTTP URIs denote.
>  
>  > That perhaps a bit of a twisted example, but a more 
> reasonable one
>  > would be;
>  >
>  >   The owners of Dan Connolly's car SHOULD make 
> available representations
>  >   that describe its nature and purpose.
>  
>  Everyone should make a web page about their car?  Huh?  
> No.  The idea
>  here is that everyone who publishes a web address (even 
> if they are
>  only using it to identify something like a media type) 
> SHOULD make
>  sure it is properly served.
>  
>  > > > The Web is a universe of resources.
>  > >
>  > >   The Web is a universe of things like Mark Baker, 
> his house, and
>  > >   his coffee pot.   
>  > >
>  > > Somehow this is different from the real universe?   
> Saying the web is
>  > > the universe is nonsense.
>  >
>  > "is" is too strong; I wouldn't say that.  But I have 
> no problem saying
>  > that the Web includes everything in the universe.  It 
> sounds wacky,
>  
>  Excuse me, but it is wacky.  :-) The universe is the 
> only thing that
>  includes everything in the universe (by a common 
> definition of the
>  word, at least), so if the web does too, then it is the 
> universe.
>  
>  > sure, but try to identify something in the universe 
> that *can't* be
>  > identified by a URI, nor return a representation on a 
> GET (even if it's
>  > not an http URI).
>  
>  You're just playing the object-oriented mind trick on 
> yourself!  Just
>  because you can model everything in the universe in 
> your computer
>  system, don't think your computer system *is* the universe....
>  
>  > > The distinction I'm trying to make only matters 
> when information
>  > > systems collide.  For example:
>  > >
>  > > Within a particular application, perhaps a school's 
> class-registration
>  > > database, students can use their home page URLs to identify
>  > > themselves.  That works fine until that data gets 
> merged on the
>  > > Semantic Web with data about, oh, student's home 
> pages.  Now we're
>  > > saying things like "there is a thing enrolled in 
> CompSci 101 which has
>  > > a last-modify date of 15 minutes ago."  This is 
> really not a very good
>  > > information system design!  On the other hand, it's 
> just fine (and
>  > > really not much more work) to say "there is a thing 
> enrolled in
>  > > CompSci 101 which has a home page which has a 
> last-modify date of 15
>  > > minutes ago."  Wouldn't you prefer we keep these 
> things straight?
>  >
>  > Absolutely, but I'd say we already can/are.  If we know that
>  > "http://www.markbaker.ca" identifies me, then it is 
> incorrect to assert
>  > that the resource identified by 
"http://www.markbaker.ca" was "modified
 > 15 minutes ago".  So we need another way of talking about the
 > representations.
 
 By "representation" here you seem to mean the data stored in the web
 server.  Conceptually that's not the same as the external data
 representation the server provides in response to a GET (which is
what
 WebArch calls a "representation"), even if they are bit-for-bit the
 same.
 
 >  With this example, I assert that
 > "http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html" identifies the HTML
representation
 > of me, so it's quite reasonable to make a last-modified assertion
about
 > it.  As Roy mentioned[1], another means of talking about
representations
 > may also be useful.
 
 I assume you mean that "http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html"
identifies
 a collection of information about you (which happens to be stored in
 HTML and probably English).  And that's what people get when they
GET
 "http://www.markbaker.ca".  And it's also what people get when they
 GET "http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html".  But if you change the
data
 on your system, the last modify time on
 "http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html" changes, but not last modify
time
 on "http://www.markbaker.ca".
 
 If you really think this is a good design, you're probably right
that
 there's not much point to you and I continuing this conversation.
 
 It seems to me that the web makes a great deal more sense when one
 thinks of http URIs identifying maintained collections of
information
 (which TimBL just calls "documents").  Is there anything
particularly
 novel, bizarre, or lacking in such an approach?
 
 > BTW, I don't think we're covering any new territory here from the
 > httpRange-14 discussion, so if you want to continue, I suggest we
take
 > it to www-talk.  Followups set accordingly.
 
 Forgive me, but it seems to me that you're not understanding me, so
 you're in no position to judge whether what I'm saying has been said
 before.  Of course I may have missed some bit of discussion in the
 past; feel free to embarrass me :-) with some pointers to messages
 which specifically answer my points.
 
     -- sandro