RE: lack of consensus on httpRange-14

Graham,

Wonderful. This meets the principle that ambiguity in identifiers is bad.  

There is no spoon.

Cheers,
Dave 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> Graham Klyne
> Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 1:50 PM
> To: Simon St.Laurent
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Re: lack of consensus on httpRange-14
> 
> 
> 
> At 11:52 AM 10/3/02 -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> 
> >In reading the minutes for the September 24th & 25th meeting, I found
> >this morsel:
> >------------------------------
> >     TB: I propose that httpRange-14 be
> >     de-prioritized. Two reasons (1) no consensus
> >     (2) I don't think it affects the arch doc. I
> >     would be amenable to close this issue with no
> >     action.
> >     DC: I agree with TB that httpRange-14 can be
> >     closed with no impact on the arch doc.
> >     RF: When you access a resource for today's
> >     weather in Vancouver, and you get back info
> >     that says "it's sunny", how do you know that
> >     it doesn't mean "it's sunny everyday in
> >     Vancouver." When you access a resource, you
> >     need to be able to make assertions about the
> >     resource and also representations of the
> >     resource.
> >     Resolved: "Defer" httpRange-14 with no action.
> >     Objection: TBL.
> >--------------------------------
> >
> >I'm not sure that "lack of consensus" is an appropriate reason to
> >de-prioritize an issue which (at least from my perspective) 
> lies at the
> >heart of an enormous number of conflicts regarding the proper use of
> >URIs.  While it may be possible to keep those conflicts from spilling
> >directly into a vaguely-worded architecture document, they 
> aren't going
> >to go away easily.
> >
> >Might I suggest instead that the TAG close this issue, noting that
> >consensus is not possible, and acknowledge the implications 
> of that lack
> >of consensus in other work?
> >
> >That may seem to weaken the general usefulness of URIs, but 
> the weakness
> >is already present - this would be acknowledging the problem 
> rather than
> >deferring it to future visions of solution.
> 
> I noted that discussion, and was tempted to respond.  Now I shall.
> 
> I think that, maybe, consensus *is* possible.  At least, I 
> don't think 
> we've yet exhausted the possibilities around which consensus may form.
> 
> In particular, I understand that the concern with not 
> restricting http: 
> URLs to documents is that it introduces ambiguity between a 
> non-web object 
> (e.g. my Car) and a web page that describes it.
> 
> In some of my work, I have avoided this problem (somewhat 
> accidentally) by 
> having multiple HTTP: URIs that dereference the same web 
> page, but with 
> different intent;  e.g.
> 
>    http://id.ninebynine.org/people/gk/
> 
> is defined to identify to me, the person, but
> 
>    http://www.ninebynine.org/Ident/people/gk/
> 
> is defined to identify the web page that describes the identifier URI.
> 
> In each case, the representation retrieved when dereferencing 
> the URL is 
> identical.  But (at least to my mind, as defining authority 
> for the URIs) 
> there is no ambiguity concerning what each URI actually identifies.
> 
> #g
> 
> 
> -------------------
> Graham Klyne
> <GK@NineByNine.org>
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 3 October 2002 17:31:24 UTC