Re: Correction Re: The case against URNs

Champion, Mike wrote:

> I really should shut up because this is all a couple levels of abstraction
> above my head.  Still, it would seem to me that the "abstract things" a HTTP
> URI represents in the real Web are something akin to "documents."

That world view is both plausible and consistent, the problem is that 
there are counter-examples; the Web already contains plenty of physical 
robots and cameras and so on addressible with HTTP URIs whose state can 
be manipulated with PUT & POST & so on, and when you do a GET you're 
getting a representation which might well be a document but the resource 
just plain isn't.

And as several people pointed out, it doesn't really matter.  Using 
RESTful operations you can deal with representations in a consistent and 
useful way and nothing is observed to break.  With some future semantic 
web we hope to be able to exchange and use information about the 
resources behind the URIs which hopefully will taste great and yet be 
more filling than mere representations (useful though representations 
are). -Tim

Received on Sunday, 6 October 2002 23:39:57 UTC