Re: lack of consensus on httpRange-14

Roy Fielding writes:
> > This Platonic Form of a resource can, however, leave us without a 
> > spoon to bend, even given a representation of spoons, as soon as we
> > cross  into the (perhaps) more concrete territory of URI references.
> 
> Ugh, let's not.  View-based fragments are not the same resource.  The
> scene wouldn't be very interesting if he just picked up a warped
> mirror. Changing the interface (instead of what the interface
> produces) is a different topic.

I'm afraid it's not a different topic in practice.  Few people or
systems actually treat the difference between URIs and URI references as
significant except in the one very small though certainly frequent
context of browsers splitting off the URI reference in making their
request.

Processors for RDF statements and XML namespaces as well as humans
looking for information are quite likely to have to deal with these
problems, and treating them as mere representation issues isn't likely
to go over well with people who (knowingly or not) prefer Hume's valuing
of experience to Plato's valuing of abstract madness.

The disconnect between URI theory and practice seems itself insoluble.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by talk of warped mirrors. Enough, I
guess - if you all want to keep the URI issue alive, that's very much
your problem. 

As I've suggested earlier that a key aspect of the problem with URIs is
the hall of mirrors conversations it tends to produce, perpetuating that
madness is a poor idea.  I'll retreat to the countryside and forage for
URLs.

-------------
Simon St.Laurent - SSL is my TLA
http://simonstl.com may be my URI
http://monasticxml.org may be my ascetic URI
urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.6320 is another possibility altogether

Received on Friday, 4 October 2002 18:41:12 UTC