- From: Joshua Allen <joshuaa@microsoft.com>
- Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 13:24:06 -0700
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@apache.org>, "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>
- Cc: <www-tag@w3.org>
> In my 8 years of experience as co-author of the HTTP and URI > standards and core developer for the Apache httpd Web server, I have > never once met a user of Web software who was confused by the use of > an http URI as an identifier. Users know that a link defined by an Roy, nobody disputes that you know a lot about HTTP. The concern is that you insert yourself into discussions on identifiers in a way that could confuse people into thinking that you are equally expert on identifiers. Identifiers are irrelevant to HTTP, since all HTTP requires is location. Since you are not an XML guy or an RDF guy, I would expect you to defer a tiny bit more to people who actually use URIs to *identify* things rather than just *locate* them. As I said to you some time ago on this list: Joshua Allen wrote: (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jul/0294.html) : REST doesn't even deal with the problem, because : the only thing that anyone ever actually deals with is a : representations. The actual "resource" in REST is a theoretical figment : of someone's imagination, and requires absolutely no consensus to have : HTTP work. You can declare that your http: URL points to a beach until : you are blue in the face, and I can declare that it points to a "web : page", and none of it will matter -- the web page still works. Tim Bray agreed: (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jul/0322.html) And Dan Connolly added: (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jul/0321.html) : Whether http URIs can identify cars and such or not isn't observable : from the HTTP protocol itself. You didn't explicitly agree, but I assume that you agree as well because this is basic common sense. I even gave you another opportunity to disagree publicly if you feel that http: URLs are meaningful identifiers: Joshua Allen wrote: (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Aug/0014.html) : This is a bit misleading. The "resource" that HTTP talks about is : purely imaginary. : HTTP only ever deals with representations, messages, the results of : method invocations. It is fine to say that HTTP distinguishes between : those various things that it actually deals with. But HTTP ignores the : resources, and it's a bit of a stretch to say that HTTP has any advice : to offer in this regards. : HTTP never "solved" this problem. It simply ignored it.
Received on Wednesday, 9 October 2002 16:24:56 UTC