Re: Arch doc: meaning of term 'representation'?: Re: TB16 Re:Comments on arch doc draft

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Stickler" <patrick.stickler@nokia.com>
To: "ext Jonathan Borden" <jonathan@openhealth.org>; "WWW TAG"
<www-tag@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: Arch doc: meaning of term 'representation'?: Re: TB16
Re:Comments on arch doc draft


> On 2002-07-03 20:49, "ext Jonathan Borden" <jonathan@openhealth.org>
wrote:
>
> >
> > Patrick Stickler wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Documentation about some resource is not an HTTP representation of
> >> that resource.
> >
> > I define (HTTP) documentation of some resource precisely as such a
> > representation. Perhaps this is the crux of the dispute, over how the
term
> > "representation" is being used? I am not saying that any representation
of
> > some thing _is_ that thing, rather, a text description, or a picture, or
> > some other electronic representation. Are we arguing over the meaning of
> > "representation" ?
> >
> > Perhaps the meaning of this term needs clarification?
>
> >From RFC 2068:
>
>    resource
>       A network data object or service that can be identified by a URI,
>       as defined in section 3.2. Resources may be available in multiple
>       representations (e.g. multiple languages, data formats, size,
>       resolutions) or vary in other ways
...
>
>    representation
>       An entity included with a response that is subject to content
>       negotiation, as described in section 12. There may exist multiple
>       representations associated with a particular response status.
...
>
> I think it's pretty clear that a textual description *about* some
> resource is neither a representation nor variant of that resource.
>

Not clear. Moreover RF's elaboration in
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5
_2 states pretty clearly to me that the HTML that is returned on URI
resolution is a _representation_ of a resource, not (necessarily) the
resource itself.

In any case, since we disagree (and RFC 2068 isn't completely clear, nor is
RFC 2396 particularly helpful) this clarification is important for the
Architecture Document.

I would say:

"A representation of a resource is a serialization of some description of
the resource. The representation may be full fidelity, i.e. a complete
description, or it may be partial, i.e. describes some aspect of the
resource. The interpretation of any such representation is determined by its
MIME type."

Jonathan

Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2002 14:33:25 UTC