Re: First public WD of "Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web"

** Reply to message from "Ian B. Jacobs" <ij@w3.org> on Fri, 30 Aug 2002
13:51:35 -0400

----
Editor's note: Need to say something about difference between assertions about
a resource and assertions about a representation. E.g., do not use the same URI
to refer to the resource "Moby Dick" and to the particular representation of
that resource, or do not use the same URI to refer to a person and to that
person's mailbox.
----

Doesn't this fall into the namespace URI trap?  If there is a URI that refers
to "Moby Dick" abstractly, but not to a particular representation, then people
will type the "Moby Dick" URI into browsers and get an error.  Then people will
say "what kind of document should be at the end of an abstract fictional
character URI", and someone will come up with a resource format called CDDL
(Character Directory Description Language, pronounced "cuddle") to put at the
end of such URIs.  Suddenly, you are using the same URI to refer to a resource
and to a particular representation of that resource, and the problem recursively
falls in upon itself.

It sounds more like you need a MIME type or HTTP header to indicate that a URI
dereferences a concept, rather than a representation.  At least user agents
would know what was happening then, and could take more sophisticated action.

	Cheers,
		Tony.
====
Anthony B. Coates, Information & Software Architect
mailto:abcoates@TheOffice.net
MDDL Editor (Market Data Definition Language)
http://www.mddl.org/

Received on Monday, 2 September 2002 16:55:45 UTC