Re: Defining the Web

Mark Nottingham quotes (Tim Bray quoting) Mark Baker proposing:

>>  The World Wide Web ("Web") is a networked information space which
>>  encompasses all things with identity ("resources").  Resources are
>>  made accessible, and potentially manipulable, via a generic interface
>>  whose application semantics are applicable to all resources.

Mark Nottingham then asks:

>  is the TAG comfortable saying that there 
> a mapping of REST to every conceivable protocol 
> that can be used to access a resource

I'm certainly not comfortable with this statement.  I think you can have 
either universality, or a pre-constrained interface, but not both.  We 
can't even know the sorts of resources that a universal web will have to 
support over the years.  How about:

"The World Wide Web ("Web") is a networked information space which
encompasses all things with identity ("resources").  The Web architecture 
attempts to maximize compatibility among the interfaces used to 
access and manipulate Web resources."

Some wordsmithing needed, but this seems more appropriate to me.

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Noah Mendelsohn                              Voice: 1-617-693-4036
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Received on Tuesday, 26 March 2002 13:29:52 UTC